Okay 3, 2, 1 Let's Jam!
by Aldrean Treu Peri
Summary: The next chapter is finally up, though I don't know how much I like it. Read and review, please :)
1. Let's Jam!

Yep, here it is folks, my take on how Bebop's ending would have gone if Spike lived.  Personally, I like both, the original ending where he dies used in the series and the changed version used by many a fanfic writer including myself.  I've written stories for Bebop using both versions, with the one where he dies as a four-part vignette series focusing on each of the main human characters in the series (don't worry though, Ein's in there too).  And the Spike-Lives-On ending to kick off my own continuation of the series.  This is kind of short, but don't worry because I've got plenty of longer sessions of Bebop to come!  As a nice bonus though, I've included the teaser for Session 27 at the ending of this.  Things go kind of slow at first, I know, but they'll pick up soon!

**Alternate Ending To: The Real Folk Blues**

**Okay …3, 2, 1 …Let's jam!**

Spike heard, through the blanket of agony wrapped tight about him, the sound of a trigger being pulled back and would have laughed, had he been able to spare the breath to do so.  Here he was, lying at the cusp of death, and some upstart little syndicate brat was going to put a bullet into him from forty paces because the damn runts were too afraid to venture near, in fear that the demon would rise again, he supposed.  Well, they should be frightened, hell, they should be dead, but obviously he hadn't been as thorough as was needed.  Still, something in his mind kept saying that it wasn't supposed to end like this, not with some cocky punk shooting him while he lay face down on the stairs, no, he was supposed to die when he killed Vicious, so why was he still alive?  Man, the least that could have happened was for him to slip into unconscious, then at least he'd be rid of the pains afflicting his battered body.  What was this anyway?  He was done, through, he'd cut the ties to his syndicate past and now his star was burning out in the sky, up in the endless blue, that beautiful blue of freedom.  His breath trickled out in a pained sigh.  It was just his luck, man, must be the curse of Faye.  He had so much bad luck he couldn't even die right.

                There was a familiar banshee howl as bullets tore up the surviving syndicate members and Spike wanted to sit up to watch as his would-be killer was murdered by the angry hail of bullets from a ship that he recognized even without seeing it.  The Hammerhead had saved his life countless times over and why should this time be any different?  The Redtail was trashed and his own ship was probably being looted at the moment, but the Hammerhead hadn't been damaged when the syndicate had attacked the Bebop looking to kill him.  Of course, the furious scream belonged to Faye.  He knew no other woman whose vocal cords could allow for such a hideous noise that sounded sweet to his ears.

                Spike sighed for real then, almost amazed that he was able to do such a thing without dying.  He mentally tallied up his injuries, moving in tiny increments, and decided that he was sufficiently close to death to just close his eyes and let it take him.  But then he heard Faye's ludicrous heels on the pavement and felt the Hammerhead land gently before Jet's boots joined the staccato sound of Faye running to his side.

                Damn Roco's sister Stella for being right when she said that he had something beautiful inside.  Something beautiful or something stubborn or something weak.  Whichever it was, it wasn't about to let him abandon them like he had hoped.  Hey, he had said his goodbyes, it was his time!  And then Faye spoke to him softly as she trailed a hand down his cheek, pressing her fingers lightly to the pulse of his heart at his neck.  He felt a happy tear splash down from her emerald eyes, felt it hit his cheek and roll down to the corner of his mouth, tasting salty against the metallic taste of his own blood.

                "You lunkhead," She muttered softly, giving a little hiccup as she tried to stop crying.  "You asked me to back you up before …not in those words of course, but the meaning was implied …did you doubt I'd do it again?" She paused and gave an elated laugh as Spike heard Jet squat down beside her.  "I had to work a bit to get cranky old mother hen here to come along but, you know, we'd never leave you to this on your own." She took her hand away to wipe her tears from her face and then let it drop back down to rest lightly at his neck.  "Open you eyes, Spike, it's high time you rejoined the living."

                Chuckling softly, he forced his eyes to open, surprised again at how much easier it was than he thought it would be.  "I'm up, I'm up." He replied in a strained voice.  "Mr. Mummy returns, Faye-Faye." He looked up at the two concerned people at his side, Faye kneeling before him, grinning ecstatically and Jet with a wry smirk as well.

"The world needs saving from the decent folk rising up again," Jet said in his low voice, watching Spike from the corner of his eye.  The younger man smiled slowly.

                "Doesn't it always,"

                Faye slipped up under Spike's arm on one side as Jet moved to his other side.  "You've got yourself neck deep in trouble again, Spike,"

                He chuckled painfully.  "You guys didn't have to ride all gun-ho on in here, you know.  I could have handled it myself."

                Faye gave him a hard look and poked him gently in the ribs, earning a sharp moan.  "Sure, lunkhead, and I've never lost a bet in my life.  Vicious …he would have …you …we all know what would have happened, Spike.  We aren't ready to let you go that easily.  Julia will always be waiting for you, she can hold out a little longer."

                Spike was silent for a long moment, eyes thoughtful and filled with pain.  "She's never laid a tougher task on me before.  But, as I've always said, I'm not the delicate cautious type."

                Jet laughed his deep belly laugh and clapped Spike on the shoulder affectionately.  "That's true enough.  Come on you two, let's quit with the chatter, are we gonna blow this joint or what?"

                "I'm with you, Jet, I'm with you." Spike replied, wincing as they started off down the street, leaving the past dead and forgotten behind.

See you, Space Cowboy … On the next session of Cowboy Bebop … 

****

**Session XXVII: Put The Past Away – **Taking up a few days or so after Session 26 ends, this starts with Spike pondering pretty much everything and it's kind of short.  Things are in a lull right now for the Bebop as they're trying to settle back down into routine.  Sorry for all the Ed and Ein fans out there, but those strange two aren't back yet!  Don't worry though because I love 'em both and the series just wouldn't have been the same without them and mine wouldn't be right if I don't stick them in here sooner or later!  This coming section is kind of angsty, but there will be a plot in the sessions to come, no worries!


	2. Session 27: Put The Past Away

Whoops, keep on forgetting this, lol: I do not own Cowboy Bebop, but I do have many images of Spike, Faye, Jet, Ed, Ein, Julia, Vicious …etc.  I do, however, own the strange thoughts that formed this story and many others.  Teaser for Session 28 at the end.  Oh, and I apologize again for the shortness, but don't worry because longer ones are coming!

Session XXVII: Put The Past Away

It felt strange to be standing there, alive and well …er, alive and healing, while he was dead.  The vicious cycle was over.  Hah, funny.  Spike took a deep drag from his cigarette and shoved his hands in his pockets, wincing inwardly at the stabs of pain from various regions of his body.  Beneath his clothes, he was largely a mummy, as Faye had pointed out mirthfully many a time before, and Jet hadn't wanted him to be off gallivanting around so soon after walking away from death's claws again.  Spike Spiegel, however, had never been one to lie around doing nothing, no matter how much pain he received for occupying his boredom with wild escapades.  This time, he was in considerably more pain than he had been after facing down Vicious in the cathedral and after the Tongpu incident, both of which were safely behind him like the rest of his past that he was preparing to bury along with the man once friend lying cold in the casket.

                "Mao Yenrai …my mentor, my father …of sorts, dead." His grave was in the same section of the graveyard as the graves of the Van.  "The Van, no longer in anyone's hair.  Annie …Anastasia, dead as well because of me.  Lin, dead.  Shin, dead trying to help me get to Vicious to end all the killing." Annie was buried near Julia, Shin and Lin buried with the rest of the Red Dragon Syndicate casualties.  "Julia …dead." On his warpath, Spike had nearly wiped out the entire Red Dragon Syndicate, and if one looked at it in a dark light, it was as though he was completing what Vicious had started with his revolt against the Van.  Faye and Jet had killed most of the other members when they had arrived to scrape his corpse up off the stairs, but he'd been stuck alive once more.  There were still some Red Dragon members alive, mostly men and women who hadn't been at the syndicate building, but Spike knew almost none of them past their names, having met a few before and never having seen them after.  Every single link to his syndicate past was gone and dead, and he was finally free.

                "At what cost?" He demanded of the cloudy sky.  "All I wanted to do was escape with Julia …I've died three times trying to get away, and this third time I've finally broken the bonds, but I've dragged a lot of people down with me." He shook his head remorsefully.  It shouldn't have had to be that way.  It shouldn't have, but it was, because it couldn't have gone any other way.  Spike and Vicious had been well-respected members of the syndicate, both standing in line to replace the Van later on, once they'd grown up more and learned the trade, and once the Van had died, but the syndicate life didn't sit well with Spike Spiegel.  It wasn't just Julia, it wasn't that he'd fallen in love with his best friend's woman, it wasn't that he wanted to take her away to give her a better, safer life.  Vicious had been partially right about the syndicate, for a change did need to come about, but not just from killing the Van and taking over.  Mao Yenrai had been on the right track, he had been like Spike, searching for a way to cleanse the bloodshed and to put a damper on the death toll that came of the undeclared wars the Red Dragons were raging with rival syndicates, most particularly the White Tigers.  It was time for a revolution, but that revolution had to be eased in, it had to be refined and shaped carefully, not thrust upon the Van, or the wise, long-surviving members of the syndicate and especially not on the upstart youths who still didn't really grasp what the syndicate was all about.

                Mao Yenrai was dead though, and so too was Vicious, and the Red Dragons were almost extinct.  This life was over and Spike was ready to bide his connections to it goodbye.  His crimson star had burned out and he had bled away the blood he shared with Vicious.  The roses for Julia were long since wilted and dead, the petals of their love falling away slowly over time until each was withered on the ground, blown to the scattered reaches of Mars by the mourning wind.  He had shed his tears for those dead and buried and he was at last ready to put his past away.

                Faye didn't realize how nice she had it, having her past lost in the Gateway incident, having no memories to seep into her dreams, transfiguring them into nightmares that woke her in a cold sweat.  But wait, that wasn't all true, Faye had told him before he left to see if he was truly alive that she remembered her past.  Spike wondered absently if her memories would stay now, or whether they would slip away from her as his past had slipped away from him.  Ah well, no matter if she did have memories, at least they weren't haunted like his, visions of what he had done, visions of the betrayals and the murders, and visions of a wicked angel lusted after by two sinful mortals, visions of that demonic taste of paradise sought after by two blood-thirsty beasts.  That was all over though, it would all be buried with this last corpse …this last piece of his past to lay to eternal rest.  Thunder rolled ominously overhead and Spike wondered if it would rain, if the clouds would cover up the sky of his life again so soon after he had reached the blue of freedom.

                Silver-white hair, an unusual color for one only twenty-seven, but then again, so was viridian and so was violet-navy …not so unusual in this age, and probably not all that unusual in the past either, unusual only in that the shades were natural.  "You lived up to your name, Vicious." Spike spoke at last, gazing down into the coffin where Vicious was laid out, pale blue eyes hidden behind closed lids, his mortal wounds – Spike's handiwork – hidden by the superb make-up job of the morgue people.  "I suppose …I should have been careful of what I asked for.  After all," He chuckled softly, bitterly,  "I was the one who told you that you should.  We were always brothers, Vicious, by the blood of the beast, if not by our parentage …but my blood isn't that of the beast anymore, and you're no longer in this life.  We are still brothers though, despite what happened, despite the rifts that separated us in the end …" He closed his eyes momentarily and sighed heavily.  "Sleep well, brother mine.  I guess we've both woken from our dreams …and your slumber can finally be peaceful."

                He wouldn't cry, he was through crying for what he'd lost, and he wouldn't keep his brother from his rest any longer, so Spike stepped back and gave a nod to the graveyard workers.  For a long time he stood there, at the edge of Vicious's grave even after the dirt was thrown over the coffin, even after the sky broke quietly and unleashed a downpour that tasted almost salty to Spike as a few raindrops landed on his lip.  "Someone …cry for me with parched eyes …" He whispered.  "I will cry no more."

                                                *                                             *                                             *

The Bebop was disturbingly and fittingly silent as Spike walked down the hall towards the recreation/den room, hands in his pockets and a cigarette hanging from his mouth, leaving a trail of water and mud through the halls.  He knew he should change out of his soaked clothes if he didn't want to catch a cold, but he didn't feel up to it and so he merely sprawled across the couch, the cold rain and pain from his wounds numbing him to his wayward thoughts as he reclined in his usual spot, trying to keep from sitting in a position that made his wounds flare up in pain.  He closed his eyes and smoked his cigarette slowly, trying to keep time from catching up to him, trying to just hold on to a moment so he could sort through the confusion of his thoughts and emotions.  It was difficult, he realized at last, to willingly let a life die away and to settle fully into another, but he'd been trying for three years and at last the final walls had broken down and he was free to abandon his old life, free to let it fade away like his crimson star, his bloody star.

                "What do you do," A soft voice began,  "when you find out that the key to what you cannot remember, doesn't unlock the door to your memories?  What do you do, when what you once had is lost beyond your reach?"

                Spike opened his eyes to see Faye sitting on the other couch, her face downcast as if she was afraid of looking him in the eye, afraid of what his response might be.  "Cope." He said at last.  "Things have a tendency to return when you least want them to …you said your memories came back, all of them, but they've been put on a shelf out of your reach …" He paused and watched as she frowned, trying to understand.  "You were getting your memories back, slowly but surely before I left …I think you've just got to grow up …the shelf will be in your reach sooner or later, Faye.  Until then, just smoke a cigarette and wait for it."

                "Like that saying …if you love something let it go, and if it comes back to you you'll know it's yours and if it doesn't, then it never was?" She asked gingerly as he offered her one of his cigarettes.

                "Yeah, I guess, sort of like that.  Just let it go for now, Faye, all things come in time."

                "Thanks," She replied after a minute, lighting the cigarette and standing to leave.  "For the smoke …and for listening."

                He nodded and leaned back again, watching the smoke in long, slender spirals, staring up at the ceiling as if it held the answers he and Faye were searching for.  "You know, Jet, I don't know how you did it, but I envy you for it."

                "For what?" Came the low-voiced response from the senior member of the crew, oldest at thirty-six.

                "Living with your past.  Mine is chaotic, Faye's is little more than a haze, and we're both stuck scrambling for clues for how to keep going.  How'd you get everything to make sense anyway?"

                Jet chuckled.  "I didn't.  I just live the life I've got the best I can …and so do the pair of you and what a troublesome pair you two are.  Life has never made sense, Spike, I thought you knew that.  My life is like a song, yours is like liquid, Faye's is a game of cards …just let it flow."

                Spike laughed then as well.  "I feel a fool, my old friend."

                "Hey, who're you calling old?" Jet demanded with a smile.

                "In trying to sever the links to my past, I lost touch with my present life, the one with a future …I turned myself around and forgot how to just live." He sat there a moment longer and stood up at last, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray by the couch he had been sitting on.  "I think we all need to cut a break." He announced then.  "Faye, c'mon out here!  Let's the three of us go out for a night on the town, let's cut loose without having to worry about catching a bounty for supper or anything.  And then, once we're sufficiently plastered, we come back here to work off our hangovers in the morning …we come back home."

                Faye laughed as she entered the room.  "I second the notion!"

                Jet too was in good cheer as he nodded agreement.  "It'll be fun.  It'll be rough in the morning, but we just gotta live for the moment."

                Spike and Jet stepped up to the door and both turned, each offering an arm to Faye who stepped up between them and took both arms.  "Besides that, I've always found that partying and getting drunk is the best medicine for what ails you, be it physical pain or emotional woes.  Tonight," Spike added jovially, "tonight we drink to life."

                "To life!"

**Saddle up for a prairie oyster breakfast, cowboys!**

On the next session of Cowboy Bebop … Session XXVIII: Campfire Tales – Faye and Spike take off in their respective ships to get some bounty information from the Laughing Bull and wind up stuck on the planet when their ships are wrecked.  Meanwhile, Jet is stranded on Tijuana when Edward uses her 'Bebop Remote' to bring the ship to earth so she can go back home.  You the readers get to choose who Jet must spend time with in this bizarre and humorous session. Choices: VT and Zeros; Antonio, Carlos, and Jobin – the senile old men who may or may not have worked on the gates – or Andy Von De Oniyate.  


	3. Session 28: Campfire Tales

**Author's Notes:**  Oh gosh, I'm so sorry I haven't posted this installment sooner but I just could not seem to write it.  There'd be bits and pieces and then I'd be dissatisfied with them so I'd start all over again and I'm still not sure how I like the ending but …yeah.  And I've included a teaser for the next session, which I've already got partially done, but I don't know when I'll have it entirely finished.  Anyways, have fun with this one I suppose and give me some reviews, they'll help me churn out the chapters faster.

Session XXVIII: Campfire Tales

"Ed is bored, Ein!" Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky the Fourth or François as her father named her complained to the small Welsh corgi napping at her side.  "Ed doesn't want to be all alone again!  Ed didn't mind that before, but Ed has shipmates that she misses now.  Faye-Faye said that the best thing in the world is to belong somewhere and for Edward to find where she belongs, but Ed thinks the Bebop Bebop is more belonging for Edward!"

      Ein whined in agreement as Ed scratched his head between his ears and sighed.  "Ed …Ed thinks that the father-person does not really want Ed back.  The father-person left Ed before and left Ed again now …but Jet-person and Spike-person and Faye-Faye didn't leave Ed, they made sure Ed was with them before leaving planets and such." She looked over her shoulder at the orphanage in the waste dump before rising to her feet and picking up the Tomato, her computer, and starting down the hill of trash and junk, walking in the direction of the latest shower of moon stones.

      The small Welsh corgi jumped up after a moment and yipped excitedly, following Ed loyally as dusk settling in over the land before fading into starry night and still they were walking towards the latest location of meteors.  Edward yawned hugely and sat down at last, arms tired from carrying the computer around and legs tired from walking.  Ed frowned as she flopped onto her back.  Ein whimpered as he lay down next to her, nuzzling his wet puppy dog nose against her bare arm.  Edward lay there a long time, not feeling up to expending the energy needed to act as monkey-ish as normal.  She instead stared up at the stars thoughtfully, looking out of instinct for the familiar constellations she'd seen while on the Bebop.

      At first, when they were docked on Mars, she'd taken up stargazing to see if she could find whatever Spike was looking for when he was watching the heavens, but after a while she had come to the conclusion that what she found wasn't anything that Spike was looking for.  She found happiness in the stars, happiness and excitement, shapes drew themselves in the night sky, shapes of funny animals and beautiful women who watched over her, women she called mother.  She could almost imagine the night sky dropping down to earth to enfold her in a hug, her star mother singing lullabies to her and keeping her safe and happy even when father-person was gone.  

      Edward wasn't so naïve however to think that she could ever belong up in the stars for she was a living and breathing person, not a ball of burning gas offering light from distances so far away as to seem inconceivable.  It was nice though to think that her mother was up there, guarding her no matter which planet she might be on or which family she was with, be it her father, Sister Clare and the other children of the orphanage or the motley crew of the Bebop.  Ed couldn't remember much of her mother, only that she had aquamarine hair falling in waves past her shoulders and gentle eyes.  Ed couldn't remember the color of her mother's eyes, or the sound of her voice, but she thought that her mother must have been a kind, pretty woman and that she must have loved her father and Ed herself.

      "Ein …Ed misses star-mother …Edward wants star-mother to come down from heaven to care for her, to give her a pretty dress to wear like Faye-Faye and to hug her and make her feel special and wanted, like Spike-person did after Ed had a bad dream before.  Ed misses Jet-person and Jet-person's bonsai plants." She sighed wistfully and shivered in the cool night air, eyes glistening.  "Edward is a survivor, like Faye-Faye …but Edward wants someone to live for.  Edward wants to go home, Ein …"

      Barking softly, Ein rose and crawled into her arms, rubbing his head against her chin as Ed hugged the little dog close, still watching the stars overhead.  She had been watching the stars when the burning star faded away and the blue star grew stronger, and she'd been watching the stars ever since the Bebop went away, always half-hoping that the ship would return and pick her up.  As she watched the stars now, her star-mother seemed to be saying something to her, trying to get her to do something and she frowned slightly, unsure of what star-mother wanted.  Ed gasped suddenly and leapt up, Ein cradled in her arms as she twirled around joyously.

      "Ed knows what to do now!  Star-mother told Ed to go back home, to go where she belongs and told Edward to look in her heart to find her place of belongingness and Ed knows that it's the Bebop Bebop!  Edward's family cares for Ed there …they don't like to show it though because they like to be tough, independent people, but Edward and star-mother know the truth!"

      Ein began barking happily before licking Ed's face from her chin to her temple and she giggled at that.  "I guess Ein-dog misses Jet-person's cooking as much as Ed does!" She made a thoughtful noise and stopped spinning to stare up at the stars again.  "How is Edward going to get the Bebop Bebop to come back though?" She thought again for a moment and then giggled once more.  "Ed knows!  The Bebop Remote!  Ed hopes the ship is close enough …"

      Up above in the sky, star-mother smiled down upon the enthusiastic young girl and wished her luck, vowing to always be there for her little earth-daughter and the Einsteinian data-dog.  The stars promised to watch their little children, human or not, and the stars promised to guide the gifted girl and the wise pup through their years.

            *                                  *                                  *

"Man, I wish Big Shots was still on the air," Spike grumbled.  "If we don't get some leads on bounties soon, we'll starve!" He kicked the television angrily a few times, Faye watching his display of irritation disinterestedly as she filed her nails, Jet looking through the haze of cigarette smoke from all three of the souls aboard the ship to his young partner taking out his frustration on the poor T.V.

      "If you don't stop kicking it," Jet said at last,  "we won't be able to watch anything that's still on!"

      "Kicking the T.V. won't bring the bounty show back, Spike," Faye added, smirking at the irate young man.  "Why don't you just accept that we're going to have to gather the information on our own?  It shouldn't be too hard."

      Jet guffawed from where he sat and choked on the smoke, laughing as he wheezed.  "Oh, Faye, you're hilarious," He managed to say at length.

      Faye glared at him through narrowed eyes, the file motionless above her index finger.  "What are you talking about?  There's an insult in there somewhere, I just know it!"

      "What you said!" Jet went on.  "We're going to gather information on our own.  Oh, you crack me up."

      Faye slammed the nail file onto the floor and sat up straighter, leaning out towards the balding man and Spike stopped abusing the television to watch the scene play out.  "What do you mean?" She demanded, voice threatening to go to painful heights.

      Spike took a drag on his cigarette and smirked at her.  "He's saying that you're funny by what you're implying.  _We_ and _our_, to be precise.  You hardly ever work to dig up the dirt on the bounty heads.  Without Ed, we're – meaning Jet and myself of course – going to have to do a little bit more work to get food on the table."

      "Hey!" She protested, standing up and removing her cigarette from her mouth to yell at them.  "That's not true!  I've done my fair share getting information on those lowlifes before!  You're the one who never works that angle, all you're good for is riding in to rough them up a little and then blowing the whole works by somehow killing them!"

      "Whoa, don't yell at me, he's the one who was making fun of you." Spike replied, gesturing at Jet.  He laughed then as well.  "Making fun of you, ha ha, making fun of you for how funny you are, Faye.  My funny Valentine,"

      "I'm glad to be such a source of amusement for the both of you!" She hollered, stamping one foot angrily.  "Why I oughta …"

      "Hey, that's it, settle down the both of you!" Jet interrupted, standing as well.  "We're down to our last couple thousand woolongs and we're almost out of food.  Again.  We need to find some bounties so we can eat for the next couple of weeks." He paused and thought a moment.  "We're near Earth right now, and both of you know that we'll never find any decent catches there, so why don't the two of you –"

      "I'm going to see Laughing Bull.  He might have some leads for me to check out." Spike interrupted, putting out his cigarette.

      "I'm coming too, I don't particularly like Earth." Faye said, dropping her butt into the ashtray as well.  She scowled at Jet.  "Or the present company on this bucket of bolts."

      "You don't have to come back either," Jet replied.  "Don't call this ship names, she's our home.  If you want me to keep putting your ship back together and to feed you here, then you'd better not say anything bad about our ship."

      Spike snickered as he started to leave the recreation/den room.  "Our."

      "Ugh.  I hate men."

      "Yeah, and I hate tomboys, beasts and …beasts and rugrats …" Spike trailed off as a heavy air settled over the three shipmates.  "Dammit." He muttered.  "I've got to get off this ship for a while."

      Faye nodded pensively.  "Yeah." She paused to straighten her red jacket around her arms and glanced back at Jet, who was still smoking and staring hard at the ashtray.  "We'll see you in a few."

      Jet nodded without looking up.  Earth.  That was where Ed most likely was, where Ed had left them a few weeks ago to find her father and, according to Faye, to find where she belonged.  Jet watched the Swordfish II and the Redtail swing by the view portals and gazed down at the familiar orb of blue and …trash, surrounded by a halo of space debris and chunks of the moon.  '_I wonder if she's found where she belongs down there._'  He shrugged to himself.  "I might as well go down to the planet.  There might be some small fries at least." It would be better than sitting around the empty ship waiting for Spike and Faye to return, and hey, there was always the chance of running into the hyperactive teenager and the small Welsh corgi earth side.  Jet nodded to himself absently.  It wasn't as if he wanted to see them or anything …maybe to make sure they were making it okay …not like he missed them or anything …

            *                                  *                                  *

"_So who is this Giggling Bull we're going to go see?_" Faye asked over the ship-to-ship intercom as the Red Tail and Swordfish II flew through space.

      Spike's laughter came through the speakers in Faye's ship, accompanied a moment later by his voice.  "_It's not the Giggling Bull, it's Laughing Bull.  He's a …sort of a …spiritual shaman.  He's given me some good advice before.  Makes sense to see him since we've got nothing else to do or go on._"

      "_Eh,_" Faye shrugged.  "_Whatever you say, Spike._"

      They flew on in silence for some time, Faye grumbling softly to herself about the stupidity of men until Spike interrupted her.  "_Hey, Faye, over this way.  He doesn't live all that close to the main part of TJ.  Whatever you do, don't argue with him over your name, trust me, I once wasted half a day doing that_."

      Faye looked a bit confused as they flew down towards the satellite, Spike calling ahead for confirmation to land.  "_Oh-kay …_" She replied.  Guiding her ship along behind Spike's as they passed through the gates keeping space outside of the satellite's imitation atmosphere zone and bringing the _Redtail down to a gentle landing some distance away from Spike's.  She hopped out and looked around uncertainly.  "Where are we, Spike, the middle of nowhere?"_

      He laughed shortly.  "Something like that.  C'mon, and remember what I said.  Just go with the flow, Faye-Faye."

      She growled.  "Don't call me that!"

      They walked for some time before Faye finally spotted a tent in the distance and after more muttering about the unholy temperature and a blister that was forming on her heel, they finally reached the dusty little outpost.  Spike ducked into the tent and Faye followed slowly, a bit startled at the lack of space inside that made her resort to standing in a hunch beside the opening.  An old Indian man was handing Spike a pipe, sand falling through the fingers of his right hand to pool on the ground.

      "The Swimming Bird has lost his way and seeks a path to follow.  The Wandering Chameleon follows to flee her past." The old man said in his slow voice.

      Spike's stomach growled.  "Uhhh …you don't have any food, do you?" He asked as Faye blinked in confusion.

      "Wandering Chameleon?  Is that me?"

      "The Ancient Bandit will strike from the lovely star and his fangs will bleed torn feathers." Laughing Bull gave Spike a hard look.  "The Swimming Bird will again be hunted by a woman, but it will not be as before.  Place your trust in the Wild Monkey and death shall be kept at bay."

      Spike drew in a lungful of the pipe smoke and closed his eyes briefly.  "I wish the hunter would stop being the hunted." He muttered.

      "A cornered prey is often the most lethal of beast." Laughing Bull replied.

      Spike made a noncommittal noise deep in his throat.  "I'm not running from my past!" Faye exclaimed after a moment and the Laughing Bull raised a brow to her.  Frowning, Faye took the pipe from Spike and inhaled deeply.  "You know, this is very mystical and all, but I honestly don't understand your riddles.  I'm a wandering chameleon?"

      "Actually, that sounds rather …fitting, Romany."

      Faye glared at him, her right eyebrow twitching.  "Gowljo."

      "Pipe, please," Laughing Bull requested, eyeing the door meaningfully.

      "Men!" Faye muttered loudly, thrusting the pipe back towards the shaman and stomping back to her ship.

      "Your companions are …interesting, Swimming Bird.  The Flying Fish on the barren world will corner Running Rock and the Wandering Chameleon will be lost unless the Wild Monkey is trusted.  That is what I see."

      "Huh." Spike murmured.  "I'll be seeing you," He said as he too left.

      Laughing Bull shook his head slowly.  "Someday there will be one to clip his wings …but a crippled bird may still fly …Great Spirit, guide their souls."

            *                                  *                                  *

"_Faye, I'm going to Venus to see what I can dig up on this Ancient Bandit." Spike announced once they had taken off again.  "__You can head back to the Bebop__ if you want."_

      "_Venus?  Why Venus?"_

      "_Weren't you listening?  The Ancient Bandit will strike from the lovely star.  In the past Venus was thought to be the planet of love and because of how bright it shone in the sky it was often called a star instead of a planet.  This is the best thing I've got to work on so …"_

      "_No, I'll come to Venus.  There's nothing to do around earth and I want some cash." Faye replied after a moment, watching the __Swordfish II fly swiftly by the gates and into space._

      "_The Wandering Chameleon follows to flee her past.  Even if you don't understand Laughing Bull, I do." Spike jested lightly._

      "_Then you know what he meant by the Ancient Bandit's fangs dripping bloody feathers?  Or who Wild Monkey is?" She demanded._

      There was a pause as Spike guided his ship towards the Jump Gates and thought.  "_I'll know once we get to the bottom of this.  Let Jet know what we're up to."_

      Faye shook her head slowly.  "Men are stupid, arrogant, whiney babies." She complained to herself.  "_Tell you what, I'll check with one of my friends on Venus to see if she knows about any of the recent bounties."_

      "_You have friends, Faye?  Good for you!"_

      "_Shut up!  See if I'll come to back you up once you start floundering."_

      "_See if I loan you the woolongs for the Gate toll."_

      Faye screamed in frustration.

            *                                  *                                  *

"_Speaking of checking with friends, I think I'll do the same." Spike announced as Faye landed her mono racer on one of the floating cities._

      "_You have friends, Spike?  Good for you!" Faye drawled sarcastically, Spike chuckled at her and gave a wave.  "__I'll contact you if I find anything out.  If not I guess we'll see if your little buddy is reliable."_

      "_Yeah, no problem, whatever." Faye replied, watching the red craft speeding against the strange yellowish sky until it had disappeared in the distance.  "I wonder who he knows way out in the boonies …only nuts would live on the surface out in the middle of nowhere." She laughed to herself.  "Figures he would know all the nuts though, especially after meeting that Laughing Bull character.  What a weirdo …" She trailed off, shaking her head slowly, though her mind refused to dismiss the advice they'd been giving by the spiritual shaman.  "Sherri should be working at the casinos about now and she's mixed up in enough deep stuff to know about any bounties, and if she doesn't, I can only hope Spike finds something out." Her stomach rumbled.  "I am __starving!"_

            *                                  *                                  *

Spike's expression was, as per usual, unreadable as he sauntered over to the bar where Faye was sitting, one slender finger stirring the ice in her drink idly as she watched the lean bounty hunter take the seat at her side.  He sat for a moment, staring at the shelves of bottled wines and liquor across the counter, hands crammed in his pockets and a world-weary look about him, as though he had just confronted a few dangerous demons.  Peering at him closer, without making it look as though she was intently observing him, Faye noticed a keen brightness to his eyes, well, to his real eye at least.  Was he …no, he couldn't be …Spike didn't cry.  No.  The smoke in the bar was just stinging his eye that was all.  Spike Spiegel was not a man to cry for anything, there could have been nothing on Venus to bring him to such despair.  Therefore, according to Faye's logic, his mahogany eye was simply irritated by the heavy smoke in the room and Spike was just being quiet like normal.

      She licked her lips hesitantly and cracked a sharp smile after a time, taking her finger from her drink and licking the alcohol from it in what she knew to be a sensual manner.  "So …learn anything helpful, Spike?"

      He barely looked in her direction.  "Nothing about any bounties, if that's what you mean.  I just …went to catch up with someone, and …to pay my respects." Faye's eyes narrowed.  "What do you have for us to go on, Wandering Chameleon?"

      She growled beneath her breath.  "That is not my name.  And, compared to you, I've got quite of bit of information to wade through.  Turns out, there's some old coot named Ebenezer, or at least that's the alias he goes by.  If he has a different name, no one knows it.  Anyway, this guy is rumored to be really old and a real big hit with the ladies.  He wanders into a strip bar and by the time he goes home for the night, one of the dancing girls is thoroughly dead.  Nothing pretty about the way he disposes of these chicks.  Since he surfaced in the world of slinky women and exotic dancing, there have been over two dozen murdered girls, each a bit more gruesome than the last."

      Spike made a noise deep in his throat.  "Sounds like he doesn't approve of lovely young lasses getting down to the nitty gritty in front of horny guys.  Can't say I blame him."

      "Huh?" Faye gave him an incredulous look.  "You honestly don't go to the strip joints, Spike?"

      "I don't really see the point in them, actually.  If you're looking to get laid, find a prostitute – those dancers cost more and you get less time with them in the long run.  All you get from those girls is a teasing.  Something to whet the appetite and keep you nipping for more.  It's like gambling, just a scam."

      "Well, nice to know you have some morals." Faye said at last, still watching him dubiously.  She cleared her throat.  "Umm, well, Sherri said that he's probably going to show up at _Cupid's Arrow tonight.  It's a racy little place with sex on stage to offer more entertainment to the masses."_

      "Wonderful." Spike commented drolly.  He grinned at her slowly, mahogany eyes drifting up and down her body.  "Why, my beautiful Faye, I think I've got an idea …"

            *                                  *                                  *

"Wonderful.  Just great.  Son of a bitch." Jet Black muttered to himself as he meandered through the ghostly town.  The place seemed hollow, emptied of everything except his life and the hot anger in his words.  The _Bebop was missing.  He had taken off for just five minutes – __five minutes! – and the ship managed to completely disappear.  He wondered for a moment how he would be able to get a hold of Edward without using the ship's scanners and sensors to locate the mischievous girl._

      Up ahead, at the end of the block, was a rundown motel, the only place that seemed to even vaguely offer the possibility of life inside, or so the few ships outside claimed.  There was no telling where Spike and Faye were at the moment, and even if he knew where they were he doubted it would do him much good.  The intercom devices had a limited range on them, barely enough for a signal from Earth to reach one of the asteroids around Mars, and the chances were high that Spike had already learned whatever there was to learn from the Laughing Bull and was on his way, with Faye in tow.

      As used to the situation and having Faye aboard as he was getting, Jet still enjoyed the times when she pranced away to loose at gambling and betting.  The woman was a shrew, though a good-intentioned one at times, and a friend he supposed but she could quickly become too much for any one person to handle.  There were several times when he had almost blown up on her, only his conscious warning him of the frailty of women saving her.  Faye Valentine though, was anything but frail.  The next time that woman pushed his buttons she would be paying the consequences.  But, as bad as she could be, she wasn't as bad as Spike.

      The boy was trouble, the boy was living death, and the boy was also something very rare, something that people almost never found anymore.  He was like the last of his species or something, and Jet was moderately amused to find himself both longing for and loathing the inevitable extinction of that race.  By all rights, Spike should have been dead several times over.  Danger and trouble followed him around like starved puppies at the heels of a man with steak and pork.  Hell, if he didn't know any better, Jet would have pinned the blame of the missing ship on his partner, but there were some things that even Spike couldn't be held accountable for.

      From seemingly out of nowhere came a familiar whistling, Jet almost turned around, his first thoughts summoning Spike to mind, but then he recognized the tune and groaned inwardly.  Andy Von de Oniyate.  Great, just the sort of help he had needed, not.  Wait, there was still a chance, if the goofball hadn't spotted him already he could still escape from this unscathed …

      "Hola, Mr. Black!" Andy called jubilantly.  "I'm glad I found you.  Why, if I hadn't come across you out here in the middle of nowhere death might have found you first!  Luckily it is I, Sir Andy, to have found you because I know where shelter can be found!" He spurred his horse into a run and neared the cringing bounty bunter.  "Oh dear, I see the sun has already started to atrophy your pathetic muscles.  Fortunately, I, the greatest knight of them all, have sighted our salvation." He pointed towards the motel Jet had been en route to with a gauntleted hand.  "I believe we shall find comfort and assistance at that domicile.  I cannot imagine what sort of fool would live out in this wasteland but …we must take whatever help we can get when death is stalking!"

      Jet ground his teeth together in an attempt to keep himself from yelling a few inappropriate things, and to keep from launching himself at the pompous fool, knocking him from the horse and beating him senseless.  Speak of the devil.  Well, sort of.  He'd been thinking of Spike and trouble and so it made sense for Andy to appear.  The boy was what Spike might have been, had the other man had no brains, no instinct, no …well, no anything that made him Spike and not Andy.  They were like strange dysfunctional twins.  And then, quite unexpectedly, Jet found himself laughing as he and Andy made their way to the derelict building while Andy looked on a bit apprehensively.  Jet was reasonably sure that the other had pegged him to be quite insane.

            *                                  *                                  *

"Well, show us the merchandise, Miss Heart." The pudgy, sweaty-faced man ordered, wiping a handkerchief across his face and leaning back in his chair.  Spike was slouched in the chair across from him and Faye was standing before the fat man, an angry tic making her left eye twitch as she subtly glared daggers at Spike.

      "What?  Can't you see enough right now?  I'm practically naked here!" Faye snarled.

      Spike chuckled.  "We've been telling you that forever, _Mae." He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.  Mae Heart and Mike Regal, a stripper and her agent.  Spike wished that he could have been the one to pick their names._

      "Ditch the yellow crap doll face, if you're looking for a job here then you should already know that the boys outside will be seeing a lot more than what you're showing now.  C'mon sweet cakes, let's see how much is real and how much is part of the plastic suit."

      Faye growled again, her enraged eyes sliding to Spike as she began to undo her clothes and step out of them.  Looking innocent and oblivious Spike sighed inwardly and averted his eyes, deciding to let her keep a little dignity.  After all, this had been his plan and it was her body on the line.  He could afford to give her a few breaks.  The fat man's low whistle of approval almost made him glance over and he would have happily broken the fellow's wrists when he began to clap.  Only after hearing the sound of clothing being put back in place did he look again.

      "Well babykins, you've just got yourself a job.  There's an amber-haired girl outside with pretty red eyes, her name is Vanessa and if you find her she'll take you to the dressing rooms so you can be outfitted for tonight's line-up.  By the time you've been sold for the evening we'll have your room all put together and Vanessa will bring you there.  God damn but I'd love to be the lucky bastard you'll be seeing tonight."

      Spike ground his teeth together and scowled darkly.  She wasn't that good-looking, Christ!  And the way this guy was eyeing her, like she was some slab of meat to be auctioned off to the highest bidder and passed around until she was past her expiration date was unsettling.  Protective jealousy, Spike decided, was something he didn't like at all.

            *                                  *                                  *

"Ed?" Faye muttered, aghast.

      "Huh?" Spike turned around and blinked as he came face-to-face with a small woman with short, bright amber hair and ruby eyes who was wearing a smile similar to those of Edward's characteristic smileys.

      "Vanessa Secoya Panazuela Scrooge, at your service!" The girl piped cheerily, enveloping Faye in a bone-crushing hug before doing the same to Spike.  "Follow V, Miss Heart!  V is ever so happy to see new faces here!  All the killings make women afraid to become dancers and V misses talking to them and learning to dance from them."

      Oh good god.  This girl was like Edward only …different.  No wonder Faye had been mistaken at first.

      Faye's mouth was open slightly, even her fuming hatred of Spike forgotten at this strange development.  Sensing a reprieve from inevitable doom and pain for having stuck her in this situation, Spike began to back away, waving.  "I see you're in good hands, Mae.  See you in action tonight!" And he was gone, with Faye still gaping at the overly exuberant girl before her.

      "Oh, bye-bye sir," Vanessa murmured quietly, giving a sincere sounding sniffle.  "Pops will never believe me.  Meeting my soul mate and losing him in such a short amount of time." Vanessa flushed guiltily and latched onto Faye's arm. "C'mon, Mae-Day Heart-Cart!  To the room of clothing galore!"

            *                                  *                                  *

      "Why, hello there, Jet Black." A woman's voice, faintly familiar, called out as Jet entered while Andy was seeing to his horse outside.

      Frowning into the sudden dimness of the motel lobby, Jet was vaguely surprised to recognize VT sitting by the bar and nursing a glass of what appeared to be bourbon, her cat lapping up some water from a saucer set nearby.

      "Long time no see, VT." He replied.

      "Is that lowlife good for nothing bounty hunting scumbag anywhere around?" She asked, sipping from her glass.

      "He went with the shrew to some hunk of rock near Mars.  Should be coming back here sometime soon but I'm not particularly looking forward to that." She raised an inquiring eyebrow as he paused.  "I …uh …sort of …eh, that is …well, I think I lost the Bebop.  One minute the ship was there and then next …gone.  So I'm effectively stranded here."

      "Damn."

      "Yeah."

      "Well, take a seat and have a drink on me, I've just arrived with a shipment and thought I might as well wet my tongue before going home again." VT explained, patting the stool beside her.

      "What a lovely maiden!" Andy's voice exclaimed, the clinking of chain mail announcing his procession through the dim little lobby towards the bar of the motel where Jet was now sitting with VT.  "This lout's eyes are unworthy to gaze rapturously upon such beauty, and yet he still stared at me when I greeted him outside.  My fair lady, would you warm the man I am?  The armor I am wearing chills the heart so."

      VT's mouth dropped open and she stared at the blond boy.

      She didn't seem to hear Jet's snort of laughter or his whispered warning for she sat there, glass of alcohol held tenuously and blinked at the strange fellow before her.

      "Jet," She murmured in a low whisper as Andy stopped before her, trailing his hand delicately up her arm, a gesture that would have probably come off better had he not been wearing the gauntlets that had heated under the merciless sun outside.  VT yelped and snatched her arm away, rubbing absently at the burns.  "Please tell me you don't know this freak and that he isn't here with you."

      "Well, I met him when he was a cowboy and I wouldn't be in his company if I had any choice in the matter.  He sort of ran into me outside and I suppose I'm stuck with him until he leaves or until Spike and Faye come back." Jet replied.

      "What do you say, milady?  Care to dote upon such a royal and chivalrous character as myself?" Andy waggled his eyebrows suggestively and VT barked a nervous laugh.

      "Rein in your horses there, stable boy, I'm not _that_ damn desperate for action." She replied, backing away slowly.  Zeros was watching her mistress being pursued by the persistent cowboy from a safe place behind Jet.

      "Dear lady, I'll have you know that I am a knight." He gestured to the shining breastplate he wore with his gauntleted hands.  His sword jangled against his armor but his lance was in absence, likely outside with Onyx, the horse.  Jet had begun to wonder when the former cowboy and rumored samurai had changed occupations.  The other occupants of the bar, three wiry old men who had been seemingly engrossed in a card game, came to life noisily.

      "Ah ha!  Crotchety little runt, that's what ya get!  Why, maybe if you'd been working on the Gates back in the day with us _real_ men you could get with a woman!" Antonio hollered from up at the bar.

      Carlos guffawed loudly.  "Like your horse has been jumping the hurtles of romance lately."

      "Romance, bah!  Women are for sex, anybody whose horse isn't put out to pasture knows that!" He shot back.

      "Your horse hasn't left the stables in years," Jobin cracked, slapping his hands on his thighs.  "Maybe if you're lucky you can catch some action with that boy over there."

      "Hey!" Andy yelped.  "I want nothing to do with any of you lazy old vagabonds!"

      "Lazy?!  Why you little …I built the damn Gates single-handedly with only my trusty steed for company and the tavern wenches, don't you be calling me lazy!" Carlos yelled back.

      "What steed?  There wasn't no steed when we were building the Gates.  And what tavern wenches?  And what about us?" Jobin demanded, rounding on the other two senile old men.

      "Aw, you two were just getting sticky with those magazines while I was doing the real work!" Antonio inserted.

      "Get off your high horse, fool!  Hah, high horse …look-e there, your little boy toy is trying to put the moves on VT.  You're missing your chance with the fella!" Jobin called.

      "What are you talking about?!?" Andy demanded.  "I should just challenge the lot of you to a dual and throw you into the dungeon and be done with it!"

      Jet reached over and tapped VT on the shoulder.  "Say, how's about we vamoose while they're arguing with each other?" He suggested.

      VT nodded seriously.  "I can give you a lift, Black Dog.  I don't think I'd be able to leave you here at the mercy of them.  Guess I'm just going soft."

      The pair sneaked away as the bickering between the three old men and Andy reached new heights.  "What dungeon?  Boy, you're delusional!  This is a Motel 8; we're in the worst bar of the cheapest hotel this side of the Gates!  There's no dungeon around here!" Carlos was saying.

      "There's something, …" Jet mumbled to himself.  "I could swear I've seen those three Gate workers before …"

      "What, you actually believe they worked on the Gates?" VT asked, Zeros watching the scene unfold behind them safely on VT's shoulder.

      "I'd believe their story before I'd buy Andy's.  Last I saw of that fruit, he was going off to be a samurai …wonder what made him switch to being a knight."

      VT risked a glance back.  "There's no telling with that kid.  Weird thing is, he kind of reminded me of Spike.  Well, Spike with no self-control and some serious issues …but …"

      "Yeah, I know what you mean." He looked back for a moment as well and elbowed VT gently.  "Andy seems to have noticed our absence.  Shall we pick up the pace a bit?"  Jet was reasonably sure that he was mistaken, but he couldn't help but think that for a moment, VT seemed a bit frightened as they high-tailed it back to her trucker ship.

*    *    *

Spike had to hand it to her, Faye sure could dance to the pole.  Her eyes were half-shut, a demure little smile affixed to her face and her body came alive as she twisted and wound herself around the thin pole at the edge of the runway.  A little flick of her tongue and her attention diverted from the rod long enough for her to run her hands down her body and to squeeze her own breasts suggestively and she'd pretty much gotten the attention of the house, despite the sexual activities being consummated on the wings of the stage behind her.

      Sitting in a corner, Spike watched admiringly and wondered briefly where Faye had learned a move that a cheerleader probably would have struggled to pull off.  If she ever gave up bounty hunting and quit gambling she'd be able to make a cushy living as an exotic dancer that was for sure.  Spike turned his attention away though after watching Faye coyly smack an exploring hand that was offered by one of the men seated right at the runway.  Ebenezer would show, he had to, this was the most likely of spots and Faye was being the perfect target.  Of course, the old fox could have already been in there, biding his time until Gustavo, the porky owner, made his rounds and started getting payments from prospective men wanting some additional and private time with the dancers and …er …performers.

      Unfortunately, there were several old men in the audience, at least ten by Spike's preliminary count.  One apparently was comatose, judging by the hungry glaze in his eyes and the trail of drool that had been dripping from the corner of his mouth since the act began, and another sat stiffly with one hand missing from sight while yet a third glared around him and spat after glancing up at the stage, though Spike easily read the lusty want in his body language as well.  Too many possibilities, too many potential mistakes.  He began to realize that this wouldn't be as easy as he'd hoped.

      Something warm snuggled against his arm and Spike absently patted the amber hair of his arm warmer, not surprised by her sudden appearance because he'd seen her coming.  For some reason, Vanessa had latched firmly onto him and didn't appear about to let go …several times literally.  Since returning he'd had to pry her off five times and had hoped to loose her if he sat out here with the audience but no such luck.  The girl had hearts in her eyes whenever she looked at him and a simpering smile that made him faintly nauseous.  She looked far too similar to Ed as well, and acted like the other girl as well and seeing her made him think of Ed and thinking of Ed acting like this and so obviously lusting after him was vaguely disgusting.

      Ed was like the kid sister he'd never had, full of energy and with a potential destruction factor that could rival him, and he naturally felt protective of the young girl – or rather, had when she was on board the Bebop – and never imagined her crushing on him.  It just wasn't right.  Vanessa's slightly obsessive behavior wasn't right either but there was little he could do about it and he'd tried.  Maybe if he just let her stay there until he needed to bag the bounty …well, whatever happened, she certainly wouldn't be returning to the Bebop with them.

      "Miiiiike" Vanessa crooned, darting up to lick his chin.  He started and wiped at the saliva with his free hand, glaring at her out of the corner of his eye.  The bounty was what he needed to be concerned with.  "Miiichael …will you play with V?  V likes to play doctor and house and police …" She continued but Spike tuned her out as he did to Faye quite often.

      There was Gustavo.

      Vanessa had curled up in his lap and was whispering suggestively into his ear, clinging to him tightly with her left arm and running her right hand over his chest.  Her ruby eyes were looking him up and down delightedly, a squeal escaping her.

      A young man stopped Gustavo.  Nope.  Two middle-aged fellows.  Nope.  A portly old man.  Maybe.  A tall, lean fellow with dark eyes and dark hair peppered with silver that Vanessa looked at as she followed his gaze.  She murmured something, pa, he thought.  No matter.  It could be the pepper-haired man.  Another younger man.  No.

      Faye's little show was wrapping up, her body bare and her movements erotic as she gathered up her discarded clothing while still seeming to dance.  Spike's gaze was tempted to linger but kept moving instead.  This was a good bounty, worth quite a bit, he wanted to get it.  He hoped Ebenezer would be paying for Faye's company, he wouldn't like it much if she wound up with some other old geezer looking for nothing more than a night of dark pleasures before maybe keeling over.  They didn't have too much time either, although they hadn't told Jet when they'd be back and he hadn't given them a day to return on.  If tonight was a bust they'd try it tomorrow and maybe the next day but then they were calling it quits.  Faye had agreed to only four shows when they'd discussed it and she counted showing Gustavo her 'goods' as one of them.

      She was gone from the stage, a buxom blond with alluring navy blue eyes took over, ample bosom spilling out of the scanty top she wore.  There wasn't enough cloth for Spike to guess at what her costume was supposed to be.  Never mind that though, Faye had five minutes to herself and then Gustavo would be leading her first of the night back to her room and Spike had to be ready to nab the guy if it was the bounty.  Not for the first time that night, Spike wished they knew what the guy was supposed to look like.

      He watched the crowd avidly, sharp eyes waiting for Faye's man to exit, waiting to see if it was the one.  Blondie's breasts were too much of a strain on the flimsy fabric of her top and it popped off prematurely, leaving her to pretend that it had happened on purpose and continue with her little peep show.  Vanessa's left hand was digging sharply into his side where she'd wrapped her arm around him, her crimson eyes narrowed as she cocked her head to peer at him, running her tongue across her painted lips.

      There.  Someone was standing up.  Wait, another person.  Shit.  Two people.  Did that mean someone was going to the bathroom or were two girls supposed to be entertaining people or was Faye supposed to handle both or what?  Suddenly, Vanessa lunged forward and caught his mouth with hers, her right hand reaching up to tangle in his hair as she sloppily planted her kiss, nails of her left hand scratching along his side painfully as she awkwardly shifted position in his lap without taking her lips from his, knee hitting his ribs hard as he twisted to escape her lavished attentions.  For such a slight girl she possessed formidable strength and her nails dug deep as she continued to try and kiss him.

      Struggling to put his hands on her shoulders, Spike tried to push her from his lap but as she toppled backwards she brought him down too, landing on top of her and she bit his lip, grinning devilishly at him before bringing her right hand out of his hair and trying to put it down his pants.

      Okay.  Enough was enough and this was way too much.  Growling angrily, which Vanessa apparently mistook as him approvingly of her actions, he put his hands on her shoulders and wrenched himself upwards and out of her sharp grip.  Her ruby eyes gleamed like wet blood and she snarled at him, slipping out from underneath him and leaping to clutch at his chest, but he stepped out of the way and had nearly made his escape when she threw herself at his knees and wrapped her arms around his legs, bringing him down onto a table with a grunt of pain.

*    *    *

Yuck.  Faye shivered slightly and ran her hands along her arms, as she would have done if she was cold, except this chill and these goose bumps weren't from cool weather.  Normally she liked attracting men's eyes, knowing that as she swayed along that males of all ages were openly admiring her ass and tits, but having to stand up there under the lights while all these desperate men were just staring at her while she had to undress on stage, while she had to touch herself in ways that would make them even hotter and more eager …she shivered again and realized she was somewhat nauseous.

      Damn, she'd have to 'entertain' the horny man who'd paid for her services shortly and she wasn't looking forward to it.  Closing her eyes briefly she prayed that it would be Ebenezer, that they'd get lucky and snag the killer the first night so Spike could crash in and help her bring him down and then she wouldn't have to dance for their hungry eyes and groping hands anymore.

      The icy prick of cold metal warned her of the presence of another in her room and she swallowed hard, feeling the sharp tip of a knife move against her throat as she did.  Cursing in her mind, Faye slowly opened her eyes, finding herself face-to-face with a pair of cruel black eyes pitted deep in a thin, pale face, waxy lips moving together wordlessly.  Her emerald eyes quickly looked him over and she sighed softly to herself.

      He was tall, maybe taller than Spike and Jet, with short cropped black hair liberally sprinkled with grey, a scrawny man and looking none to enthused about spending some quality time with her.  She wondered to herself how much time had passed since she had vacated the stage, wondered when Spike would be showing up to get her out of this little pickle.

      "Such a lovely whore, who would ever expect you possess such an aggressive side?  A filthy tigress you are, but do not fear, I am here to break you of your captivity.  This life is not for one such as you, oh no, you're far too proud and vain to lower yourself to such dirty standards.  But then I must ask myself, why were you on the stage tonight then?  My precious Faye.  I bet you don't know what you've stumbled into, do you?" He smiled, a sickly thing that turned her stomach.  "I do so hope you aren't expecting Mr. Spiegel to show up.  He's a bit …preoccupied at the moment.  Hot hands and a warm mouth seem to be quite distracting for him."

      White-hot anger flushed through her.  As if Spike would be entertaining little sluts while she was in here with the murderer!  Something about that seemed a bit off but the knife pressed tight against her neck made rational thought vanish in a cloud of fear and dread.

      "Don't you know, darling?  I'm doing this all for you.  Well …mostly.  I am a collector, a very wealthy man, a very dangerous and powerful man.  But I don't like to see creatures of the wild trapped in such hells and made to feign tameness and meekness.  This is why I free you and those like you as I have.  But I get to collect my valuables because of this and I hoard them as any greedy urchin might, but I am no urchin.  I am the deliverer.  It is only right that I should receive pay that makes me quite pleased as I am doing my work."

      The haze of panic chilled and shattered as her heart stopped.  This man was insane.  And she was trapped alone with him in a room where screams would hardly be an indicator of something amiss.  And somehow she knew she would be screaming.  She was surprised at the rush of satisfaction that coursed through her as Ebenezer began, glad that her throat was locked up so that her voice couldn't summon a scream, elated that she'd defied him in one small way.  She thought that most victims would have screamed long before, but not her.  She didn't scream until she saw her own blood beginning to coat the cold, cold blade that carved into her skin.

*    *    *

This girl was seriously beginning to piss him off.  Their battle had left the dimly lit room and had sprawled into the hall way that lead to the girls rooms and Spike was sick of making an advance only to be dragged back again.  Never mind how much Vanessa looked like Ed, never mind that Vanessa was a girl, she had drawn blood and she had caused bruises and she was hindering him from catching a bounty and that was something he would not tolerate.

      Her eyes were furious and her grip none too gentle as she planted her feet and clung tightly to his waist.  Glaring at her, he kicked her feet out from beneath her and was brought low again, stretched out across her slight form.  This position had rapidly become one he hated.  A noise distracted him and she bit viciously into the forearm that was pinned between his chest and hers as he reached with his other hand to get his comm.  Failing to grab it, he just pressed the audio button and snapped, "WHAT?"

      "Spike-person!"

      That jubilant cry froze him and Spike glowered at Vanessa until he realized that she hadn't spoken, although she was making animalistic noises.  "Edward?" He questioned hesitantly.

      "Hooray!  Edward has found you!  Jet-person wasn't on board the Bebop when Ed and Ein came on so Edward turned on the scanners to find Spike-person and Faye-Faye and Jet-person but Jet-person's talk-box must not have any batteries because Ed couldn't find him but she found Spike-person and Faye-Faye is nearby!"

      "Ed, where are you?" He demanded, struggling to contain the girl thrashing wildly beneath him, her teeth clamped down on his forearm.

      "Ed and Ein are on the Bebop above where Spike-person and Faye-Faye are!" She replied proudly.

      "Ed, listen to me, I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment but I need you to do something for me.  Get to Faye."

      There was hardly a pause on the line.  "Yes sir!  Edward over and out!"

      Satisfied that he'd done something to help out Faye, since she'd whine that he didn't show up even if she hadn't been in real trouble, he turned his attention back to the vicious girl writhing beneath him.

      "Listen girl, I don't know what your problem is or why you keep bugging me but you're going to stop it now.  Why have you been attacking me anyway?  Normal little brats with crushes don't go around trying to mutilate the people they like!" He yelled.

      Vanessa's ruby eyes sparked madly.  "Grandfather needed the assistance of V, my love." She breathed.  "V has found her soul mate and V must keep him occupied so Grandfather may free the tormented beast."

      The girl's voice was full of reverence and Spike mentally shuddered.  If this was how people with faith acted towards God he didn't want to see it, although he'd see a bit of how people had reacted towards Scratch before and he figured that must be close.

      Spike looked down at her and brought his face close to hers.  "Guess what, V.  You're a very sick little girl and I can't begin to fathom what goes on in that twisted little brain of yours but if your grandpa is with my friend I am going to help her because I've tolerated you far long enough.  This ends now." And with that he slammed his head against hers, hers smacking the hard floor with enough force to bounce twice and her eyes rolled back in her head as she went limp beneath him.

      Staggering to his feet, one hand pressed against his forehead, Spike ran from the girl towards Faye's room and prayed that he wasn't too late.

*    *    *

Edward knew something was very wrong as soon as she reached the window to the room where Faye's "talk-box" was supposed to be, according to the scanners on the Bebop.  She put a finger to her lips, noisily shushing Ein who had been very quiet and listened for a moment to the man raving inside.

      "I'm surprised, most faint long before now.  You're breathing so hard, so fast …it's exhilarating.  Your eyes are unfocused though, I doubt you're fully aware.  Too bad, I'm sure this'd astonish you.  Did you ever imagine your body could hold so much blood?  Can you feel that?  Your spirit is leaking out, you're being freed and soon I get my prize.  The human heart is worth far more than coins and I'm going to cherish yours.  You've been my best so far.  See, I don't understand the other men.  They think that sex is the pinnacle but I know better.  You're going to be dead shortly.  Hearing that last warbling breath, once I cut through your stomach I'll be able to reach inside of your body to clutch your heart.  Have you ever dissected a frog, Faye?  That's what this is like."

      Edward didn't understand much of what the man was saying and she somehow doubted he himself understood all of it but she knew that Faye-Faye was being hurt somehow and she knew she had to stop it.  A gasp followed by a moan and a raspy scream.

      "Your throat must be sore.  Poor dear.  And you haven't even screamed for very long …ahh, but your screams were powerful and loud, straight from the gut those were.  Do you like the patterns I'm putting in your skin?  I feel like an artist …ahh, your blood is making me giddy.  It tastes very fine, Ms. Valentine."

      "Stop it!  Stop it stop it stop it stop it!" Edward hollered, hurling a fairly large stone at the window and shattering the glass.  Ein leapt through and Edward climbed after him and the man, startled, stepped away from where Faye was lying.  Edward lunged at the man, wrapping her arms tightly about his neck and kicking his shins hard while Ein bit deeply into the hand that held the bloodied knife.

      The door smashed open and a battered Spike-person stood there, eyes finding Faye on the bed and going flat.  Edward felt her grip being loosened and looked to see Spike taking her arms from around the man's neck.  Spike looked straight at her, preventing her from looking anywhere else.

      "Ed, go out this door and find a phone and call a hospital and the police.  If you don't do this and quickly Faye will die." His arresting gaze left her and she dashed from the room, her heart weighted heavily by fear for Faye-Faye.

      Inside Faye's room, Spike was looking at Ein while holding Ebenezer's collar in a vise-like grip.  "Ein.  Drop it." Growling, the Welsh corgi did at length and the knife clattered to the floor.  He slugged Ebenezer in the temple and the man crumpled without resistance to the floor but Spike had already turned his attention to Faye, wrapping sheets tightly about her wounds to prevent further blood loss.  Ein sat on the floor and looked at the downed man while Spike tended to Faye as sirens became audible in the distance and hurried nearer.

*    *    *

Jet thanked VT again for the lift from earth before walking to where the docking port for the Bebop was, boots ringing out softly on the station base.  He had been mildly surprised to hear Ed's voice when he had changed the batteries for his communications device but it made sense in an Edward sort of way that she'd steal the Bebop to get back together with them.  He paused outside the door and accessed a computer briefly, making a 'hmm' noise of interest before pressing the unlock code and entering the Bebop.

      "Well, guess what cowpokes," Jet called as he entered the den area.  Faye glanced up from where she was watching Ed play on the Tomato with only minor interest as Spike ambled in and stood behind the couch.  He looked to Jet to continue.  "Big Shots is back on the air.  Some hotshot bounty hunters went down to the station it was being broadcast from and negotiated a bit with the network.  They've got some big-bellied Spaniard and a cheeky little redhead to replace Punch and Judy."

      Spike's eyebrows rose.  "You knew their names?"

      Faye added a snort of disbelief.  "Mr. Bad-Accent and Ms. Superglue-Vest, those names worked good enough for me."

      The viridian-haired man laughed his agreement.  "Well, there's one good thing that comes from this, I guess.  We won't have to make another trip like the last one."

      Faye scowled.  "That wasn't my name.  Why did he call me that?  And since when were you able to pimp me?!" She demanded, glaring at Spike.  

      "Keep it down, would you?  You're not supposed to be exerting yourself in any way remember, and that includes talking, especially since your voice is all shot right now." Spike muttered, reaching over as if to poke her torso, most of which was covered by bandages.

      "Nice to know you worry." She muttered.

      Jet, when he'd heard, had indeed been worried about her, as he imagined Spike must have been too.  Faye had lost a great deal of blood apparently and several times almost didn't make it while the surgeons were stitching her up.  Her upper body in front was a mess of stitched up slashes and cuts covered in the gauze and bandages, most wouldn't scar but there were a few that might.

      "At least you're finally wearing decent clothes now.  See, Faye?  Pants aren't as bad as you might think they are and shirts can be pretty heavenly too."

      "Argh!" Jet licked his lips hesitantly and wisely backed towards the kitchen, a sweat drop forming on his brow as Faye voice screeched to new octaves normally unattainable by the human vocal cords, until, that is, Spike's hand fell across her mouth.

      "Faye.  Shush.  If this is how you're going to react to harmless teasing then I don't suppose I can poke fun at you until you're better.  You can't just spring back to how you were, you've got to allow yourself some time to recover.  Your vocal cords need some rest too."

      "Humph.  You always just go back to being normal jackass, careless Spike, risking your stupid hide when you're on half a leg and practically deceased." She said, softer than she had been speaking earlier, as soon as his hand left her face.

      "I'll make you a deal then.  The next time I'm a mess of mashed up flesh with more broken bits than good ones I'll sit on my ass and have you and Jet play nursemaid for me for as long as I'm hurt if you just take it easy now."

      "I hate you, you know." She replied.

      "The feeling is mutual, Faye, don't worry." And then he wandered back down the hall towards his room, leaving her alone in there with Edward who had abandoned her interest in the computer and was watching Faye quietly.

      "Uh …is there something you want, Ed?" Faye asked after growing unnerved.

      "Faye-Faye …do you know what mothers are like?"

      Faye's mouth dropped open a bit and she found herself unable to do more than stare at the redheaded thirteen-year-old before her.

      "Ed doesn't remember her mother very well but that's okay because she's got Faye-Faye and Spike-person and Jet-person and they're like big brother and big sister protectors for Edward …but Ed has star-mother too.  Ed will show you someday but Ed wants you to know that even if you don't remember your real mommy there will always be star-mother to watch and love you." There was a pause as Ed looked towards the ceiling, a wistfully distant expression on her face, and then they felt the shuddering jar as the Bebop was released from the docking clamps and soared back into the depths of space.  And suddenly Edward was Edward again, grinning and bouncing as she picked up her Tomato.  "Faye-Faye, can you take Edward shopping sometime?"

      "Of …of course, Ed.  Anytime you'd like." The hyperactive girl danced down a hall with her computer balanced haphazardly on her head and a yelp told Faye where Ein had been dozing until Ed had stumbled upon him – perhaps literally.  By herself then in the common room of the ship, Faye stared off at the wall for a time without really seeing it, thoughts a jumbled mess inside of her head.  She thought about her memories, which she had regained just before Spike left to face down against Vicious and how they had faded elusively shortly thereafter.  She thought about the bounty they had just caught, only getting money for the old man since the granddaughter wasn't a bounty herself.  She thought about how close she had come to death that time and how she had felt on stage in front of intoxicated and horny men.  She dipped into her mind, sifting through blank pages that should have had memories in vivid color, searched for a memory of her mother.

      "I wonder if you're right, Ed." She whispered after a time.  "I hope that there is someone out there who protects and loves me.  I _know_ that there has to be someone like that for you, and I know that something watches out for Spike or else how could he possibly still be alive?  I …" She paused and looked up towards the ceiling.  "Thank you, Edward.  And welcome home."

Back in the saddle again … On the next session of Cowboy Bebop … Session XXIX: Of Milk, Cookies, and Monsters Under the Bed 

Faye: _On Earth in the past, people strove to wipe away the cobwebs of history to better understand their purpose, their meaning, and to have guidelines for how to go about their lives and to shape the future.  I feel sometimes like a pioneer just discovering that there is knowledge to be gleaned from days gone by, that drawing upon what I learned in my yesterdays, I could know why I'm here today.  Wisdom …truth …understanding …_


	4. Session 29: Of Milk, Cookies, and Monste...

Author's Notes: To make up for you all having to wait so long for the third installment I'm sticking the fourth in here now.  There are some things that aren't really cleared up in this session and some things that are and for the most part it's supposed to be like that.  The chapter after this might be a while in coming but I'll try to write it up as quick as I can because there are so many others waiting in line behind it that are mostly done or just begging for my attention.  It's hard to write when different chapters of the same story are competing for your attention, lol.  Okay, 3, 2, 1 …let's jam!

Session XXIX: Of Milk, Cookies, and Monsters Under the Bed

"Spike, either wake up or go back to bed." Faye ordered, watching with raised brows and a sleepy smirk as Spike tipped the carton of milk into a fully upright position before glaring at her over his shoulder, his bleary gaze bizarrely comical to one Faye Valentine as she shook her head slowly in wonderment and sighed.  "Your choice but whichever you choose, stop pouring the milk onto the cookies."

      Looking both agitated and puzzled, Spike looked back to the table where two chocolate chip cookies were drowning in a puddle of milk.  "Huh?" Spike muttered.  "I thought …where'd the glass go?"

      Faye laughed softly.  "It's probably still in the kitchen, I'll get a towel while I'm getting my own midnight snack." She emerged from the kitchen moments later, slightly surprised to find that Spike was still awake …sort of.  She mopped up the mess he had made and took a bite of her own cookie as he scooped one soggy cookie into his mouth eagerly.  "What are you doing up so late, er …early?" She asked after the silence between them had stretched too long.

      Spike's sleep-addled brain was apparently reawakened after the cookie and he met her inquiring gaze evenly, his tired eyes thoughtful.  "Had a nightmare, woke up hungry.  You owe me an orange."

      For a moment, she was perplexed.  "An orange?  What are you …oh wait, yeah, never mind, I remember.  Hey, you know what they say about finders and keepers after all."

      "Jet left that there for me." He replied crankily.  He was still partially bandaged from his showdown with Vicious, and as he reached for the second swamped cookie, she saw that the katana wound was still causing him some pain, most likely due to stiffness from lack of movement or too much movement.  The latter seemed more probable in his case.

      "How about this …I'll buy you an orange if you give me on the next bounty, my share _plus_ a part of your share that will cover the repairs to my ship Jet made."

      He snorted.  "What for?  You busted it up on your own."

      "I was watching your back, lunkhead.  If the syndicate hadn't tracked _you_ down, I wouldn't have needed to risk my own neck keeping the Bebop in one piece."

      "If the syndicate hadn't tracked _me_ down?  You were the one with Julia when the syndicate tried to gun her down, if anything it was you they followed. He paused and blinked.  "Besides that, we've had this argument before!  If I should pay you anything, it would be for picking me up from the syndicate building before the low-level brats riddled my body full of bullets."

      Faye started to make a smart reply when she faltered, remembering why she had originally followed him into the den room of the ship, and once she realized that the last thing he said wasn't exactly an insult.  Arguing with him was not a part of her nighttime agenda anyway, but finding out why he was practically sleepwalking through the ship was.  "Tell me about your nightmare." She requested suddenly as he was in the midst of guzzling milk straight from the carton.  He glanced at her sharply and automatically started to say something, succeeding in getting a great deal of milk up his nose.  Faye laughed at his expense as he coughed and gagged, fumbling for the soggy towel.  "Hah, serves you right for drinking straight from the carton.  My daddy used to do that when I was little and when he thought mommy wasn't looking.  He'd slip me spoonfuls of cookie dough too …" She trailed off wistfully and looked up at Spike who was staring at her in a disconcerting manner.  "What?!"

      Spike's mouth opened, however no coherent sound emerged and a moment later he shut it, satisfying himself with merely watching her.  Faye's eyes narrowed as she scowled at him, feeling a strange kinship to lab rats under nearly constant supervision while being tested.  She remembered seeing a documentary on that once with her mother and she hadn't been able to sleep well for a week afterward, her heart going out to the poor small creatures at the mercy of the frightening men in lab coats.  Ever since then, the monsters hiding in her closet and beneath her bed had taken on the form of scientists and nothing her parents had done could dissuade her of the opinion that men in lab coats were evil, cruel people.  Her emerald eyes widened as she gasped aloud, shivering despite the warmth of the ship.

      She knew that Spike was watching her still, concerned, as she fell back limply on the chair, breath coming in small, choking gasps as she struggled to make sense of what was happening to her.  Memories had come back to her before, usually faded things that were gone again before she could grasp it fully, before she could turn it about in her mind like a puzzle, answering the right questions and rotating the correct number of degrees before unlocking the faint, muddled prize at the heart of the contraption.  Memories were a great deal like a game, trying to find how to solve the riddles or trying to piece together the clues to get the full picture, the heart and truth of the matter.

      Now she was having to fight to breath, Spike at her side as though he'd been there the whole time, wide-awake and worried as he watched her strain to keep conscious, unsure of what to do with himself to ease her labored breathing as she started to cry hard racking sobs that stole away the little breath she had.  Thoroughly concerned now, Spike pulled her close to himself in an awkward hug that gave her strength.  Stranded alone within the jumble of conflicting thoughts and memories assaulting her, she felt him take her into his embrace and latched on to the life-saving line he had tossed her, using the worry and honest care that he was radiating to draw her back to the present, using it to fill her lungs with beautiful, sweet air and using it to cling to him like a child newly woken from a bad dream.  

      The fact that she was openly weeping in his arms horrified her, though he wasn't trying to push her away and he didn't seem as if he wanted her to leave anytime soon.  She tried to stop crying but only succeeded in sobbing all the harder and she was no longer even sure why she was crying.  She was a strong, proud, independent woman …she didn't need a man to hold her close and to comfort her, she didn't need to be guarded like some precious jewel or possessed by a man jealous of all other living male creatures, she of course was thrilled when someone gave her respect or allowed her indulgences to be sated but she didn't need to be pampered either.  She wasn't some frail, delicate creature to be put on a pedestal and worshipped from afar and she certainly shouldn't be made so weak, so vulnerable by a simple memory.  A memory!  Gods, she was pitiful, pathetic …a memory!  All they ever brought back was pain and guilt, and she was plenty miserable enough in her current life – most times – to be cursed to suffer the pains of a life she could no longer recall except in snatches and foggy dreams.

      Gradually, her sobs were slacking, her breath coming much easier as she fought against the talons of sleep that were threatening to bear her away.  Crying had always drained her and she was so exhausted already …it would be so nice to just close her eyes, safe and warm in Spike Spiegel's arms, the memories already being buried once more in her mind, she herself safe until the next one was triggered and brought to the fore of her mind.  She was vaguely aware of Spike talking to her in calm, soothing tones underlined with the fear-edged worry that was still first and foremost in his own mind.  She was sinking away, the talons finding their grip and carrying her away on a warm draft of wind and slowly her eyes were fluttering close as she whispered softly,  "G'night mommy, g'night daddy …" And then she was soaring on the wings of an albatross into rich, restful slumber that was blessedly free of both dreams and memories.

            *                                  *                                  *

Spike's gaze met Jet's across the den room as he held the sobbing young woman in his arms tightly, almost possessively.  Jet opened his mouth as if to ask what had happened when Spike cut off his unvoiced comments with a curt shake of his head.  The confused older man stifled a yawn as Ed wandered into the room, rubbing weary eyes and blinking owlishly, her mop of bright red hair in even more of disarray than usual.  Speaking in low, quiet tones, Jet led the girl from the room, sparing Spike and Faye one more curious and fretful look before exiting completely.

      Faye was murmuring to herself, tears still flowing freely as she clutched him close, trembling like a leaf in his hold even as the tears slowed and eventually trickled to a stop.  Spike, fully awake, saw Faye struggling against the lull of sleep and knowing that it would do her more good if she slept now swallowed past his apprehension and began to sing to her a peaceful lullaby that he had heard once, long ago, in his childhood.  

"Golden slumbers kiss you eyes,

Smiles awake when you rise,

Sleep, pretty loved one,

Do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby,

Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby,

Care is heavy, therefore sleep,

You are care and care must keep,

Sleep, pretty loved one,

Do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby,

Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby …"

He smiled thankfully as Faye quieted, whimpering softly as her eyes drifted shut and she relaxed in his arms.  He continued to hum the melody of the lullaby as he sat there, half-turned and leaning against the chair and with Faye in what had to be an uncomfortable position still holding to him in her sleep.  '_I can't sit like this and she can't sleep like this …dammit, I'm going to have to move her somewhere …she'd better not wake up…_' He thought to himself as he rose carefully and lifted Faye into his arms, cradling her gently.  '_She's like a child all over again …mommy and daddy, sheesh, wish I could wake up someday from this dream and have my mommy holding me close._' He groaned softly at his own thoughts.  '_Geez, woman has me missing my own childhood._' He looked around, reorienting himself with the lay of the ship and paused.  '_Faye's room is down that way, mine is closer though,_' Rolling his eyes and chuckling, he started down towards his cabin, kicking the door when he reached it rather than juggling with Faye in his arms to key the entry pad and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of his room before making his way to the bed and settling Faye in as tenderly as he could.  The dozing woman made a few sleepy comments that were too soft for his ears to catch and shivered as he pulled up the cool sheets and blanket around her.  A light frown creased her smooth brow and she mumbled something, possibly the name of a stuffed animal.

      "Oh man, this is just outrageous …where am I supposed to find a stuffed toy for her to sleep with?" He considered hunting down Ein for a moment and then rejected the idea.  Neither dog nor woman would be pleased in the morning if they awoke to each other, and no matter how humorous Spike knew he would find it, he didn't really feel like bothering Faye like that.  The incident in the den room was still fresh in his mind and his heart was still beating a pace faster than normal.  Faye had looked so completely lost and terrified, and she hadn't really been able to breath either …he fought off a sudden chill that wrapped itself about him and closed his eyes briefly.

      "Poor girl, I never knew the memories returning brought on fits …or was it just my presence?  She didn't even seem to know when she was talking about her parents …strange.  It's like she's two different people, both a little girl alone in this world and Miss Complainer, still by herself.  Maybe I should ease up on her awhile …but first there's the matter of the stuffed animal to deal with." He watched her a moment longer and then stood and pulled his jacket on and donned his shoes, feeling a mite bit foolish in sweat pants, a white tee-shirt and his suit jacket but realizing that no one would be awake to care at this hour.  "I suppose I could head down to the casino hotel, they've got to have a gift shop for the kiddies and to dip into the pockets of the tourists after all."

      He nodded to himself and put his hands into his pockets, sparing Faye one last glance as he reached the door and keyed it closed before whistling the lullaby and heading to the hanger of the Bebop for a little late night excursion in the name of friendship.

            *                                  *                                  *

The night air was cold outside the ship, but not too cold, just chilly enough for the stars to seem frozen in the sky above, his breath steaming as it hit the cooler air outside his body.  "Might as well get some more smokes while I'm out and about …Jet will probably need some groceries …" He paused and smirked.   "I think I'll get some beef, then he'll have no excuse for feeding us only the damn bell peppers." His gaze went automatically to the sky as he walked along the dock leading to the small, sleeping town, and further down the road the bustling casino district.  "Star light, star bright …where is my guardian star this night?" He questioned of no one in particular as his gaze roved across the crystalline heavens, passing over the familiar but common diamonds against the velvet tapestry before one star in particular called out for his attention and he smiled.  "Ah, there you are …is it lonely in the sky without my first star of life?  You'll die out someday too, just like the other one …and then where will I be?  Gone, gone away for good …this cool cat will be chasing mice bounties and snoozing on the couches of heaven then." He laughed at himself then.  "Well, all right, maybe not heaven."

      The roar of ship engines filled the air, shattering the silence that had reigned previously despite Spike's casual rambling and soon the noise of weapon's fire joined that, bullets spitting up earth as they impacted around Spike, one grazing the sleeve of his jacket.  Spike made a 'huh' noise and tilted his head backwards to watch the unmarked and black painted ship zoom by, still walking without any outward appearance of regard to his life, which was currently in jeopardy by the ship that was now swinging around on a return, machine guns thrumming in readiness to try picking him off again.  Spike frowned, wondered what the hell he had done now and dove for the ground, flattening himself out as the bullets passed harmlessly over his head.  

      Dropping the laid-back no care attitude Spike shot back to his feet and pulled out his own weapon, a Jericho 941, and gave the terrain a quick look over before sighing.  Trust someone with a grudge towards him to come after him around two in the morning in an area with no places to run to for cover except possibly back to the ship or towards the town, but both were equal distances too far for him to dash to without being ripped apart by the guns on the ship.

      "Can't a guy do anything nice for his shipmates without being shot at?" Spike shouted as the ship turned again to come back for another pass.  Growling under his breath, Spike raised his gun and fired off a round, succeeding in hitting one of the fuel tanks.  "Oh shit …this isn't gonna be pretty." He muttered, reloading.  Taking careful aim, he locked onto the bubble dome over the cockpit and fired three times.  A pained cry filled the air and the ship shook a bit as the pilot apparently lost control, but soon it was back on course.  Thoroughly enraged now the pilot pushed the ship down closer, presumably deciding that the risk of being shot was worth killing or at least seriously wounding Spike.  The bullets tore into the ground around the angered bounty hunter, one finally hitting target and spinning him around quickly as it ripped through his right shoulder, just above his lung.  Sucking in a quick breath, Spike leapt onto the nose of the sleek black vessel as it began to fly higher to come at him again.

      Obviously surprised by this action, the pilot banked the ship back and forth in effort to knock Spike from the ship, but the injured cowboy merely gritted his teeth and held on tighter, crawling towards the main body of the ship where his opponent was.  "Man, this guy is really starting to piss me off." He grumbled as he peered into the cockpit through the dark-colored bubble dome, using one of the bullet holes from his own counterattack as an eyehole.  "Bingo." He put the business end of his gun to one hole and squinted, trying to see through the shadowed dome in order to fire a killing shot.  Realizing it was useless to pinpoint the pilot's position, he shrugged to himself and fired.

      The ship gave a shudder and started to sway sickly in the air as Spike grinned to himself.  "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner." Suddenly, the ship spun upside down, tipping the hapless Spike from the vessel and dropping him down to the ground some distance below.  "Aw, dammit!" He cursed, flailing awkwardly as he plummeted to the earth.  Before hitting he was rewarded by watching the ship crash in a blaze of flame and fuel, and then everything went black.

            *                                  *                                  *

Jet Black rolled over in his bed and heaved a sigh as he opened his eyes and stared up at his ceiling.  A moment later, he was rooting through his drawers for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, the flame casting a dim light into the room and catching against the papered tip of the cigarette, the burning ember flaring as he inhaled deeply.  "Who needs sleep anyways?" He asked his dark room, sitting up against the wall, arms crossed over his stomach with the cigarette hanging from his mouth.  After another moment of restful quiet and listening to the ship's nighttime noises, Jet realized that he wouldn't be getting any more sleep in the near future and, grouching to himself, began to change out of his night clothes.

      "Too early for any sane person to be up," He muttered, flicking the ash from his cigarette into the clay ashtray resembling a smiley face Ed had made for him.  "Spike's probably awake right now, damn fool never sleeps at night, always dozing during the day and hoping everything will be taken care of by someone else while Faye gambles away all our money and complains when we don't have enough to eat." Worry had manifested in his mind though when he had seen Faye bawling in Spike's arm an hour or so ago.  Even though he had only been half awake then, he'd still been alert enough to know that something wasn't right and now the feeling was eating away at him inside.

      Jet glanced into the den room, half expecting to see both of them still in there, passed out, but no one was there and so he went down to Spike's room to see if the lazy bum _was_ awake.  His eyes widened and the cigarette nearly dropped from his mouth as he saw Faye sprawled out on Spike's bed, tossing and turning fitfully, seeming to be reaching out for something.  She was speaking in half-phrases, calling out names, crying softly.  Like a child.  "Mommy …mommy, I want my teddy …mommy …daddy …Mr. Pooh Bear is missing …mommy!"

      Moaning softly, Jet went into the room and looked around quickly, spying Spike's bloodied and holey trench coat draped over a chair.  The said article of clothing had been washed several times over, and worn twice that Jet knew of, gathering more blood stains and holes each time, and for some reason Spike still wouldn't get rid of it.  Jet snorted as he balled the trench coat up in the vague shape of a teddy bear before setting it gently into Faye's arms.  Her face lit up even in sleep and she sighed happily, clutching the trench coat close.  "Mr. Pooh Bear …" And within moments she was deeply asleep again.

      "Well," Jet said quietly to himself.  "Since she's in here, maybe he's in there." But Spike wasn't in Faye's room either and by now the worry that had been for Faye was for Spike, a writhing thing that made his stomach tighten.  "Oh great, where has that lunkhead gotten himself off to now?"

      A sleepy voice murmured,  "Lunkhead, lunkhead," Followed by tired giggles and Jet looked up warily, not entirely surprised to see Edward draped across the pipes in the corridor and apparently still mostly asleep.  "Lunkhead went to the casino." Ed yawned in her sleep and flopped to her other side, giving Jet a scare.  "Spike-person went to …went to get a gift shop …shop shop for Bebop Bebop!" She giggled again and started to snore softly.

      Jet watched her twist around on the pipes before getting comfortable again and wondered how she could sleep while balanced so precariously above the floor like she was before deciding that it didn't matter.  Making his way back to the den room Jet put out his cigarette in another of the ashtrays stashed around the ship, some like the one in his room made by Ed at one point or another, and took out another cigarette.

      "Spike's at the casino buying a gift shop?" He shook his head.  "That can't be right …let's see …a casino and a gift shop …what on earth could he be buying at this hour of the morning?" Thinking hard, something else occurred to him and he straightened up, his face a thundercloud.  "And with what money?!"

            *                                  *                                  *

Spike awoke shortly thereafter, but he didn't rise right away.  "Who was that guy anyway?" He questioned, taking a mental tally of his injuries.  Gunshot wound to the right shoulder, possible cracked rib from that jarring fall, some residual pain from the katana wound but that was old news.  Yep, that was pretty much it.  Sitting up slowly, he looked to the ship, which was burning away and leaving the smell of burnt flesh and electrical wires shorted out.  Wrinkling his nose, Spike clambered to his feet and rolled his shoulders, taking a few experimental breaths in and out before deciding that his ribs were fine and that the bullet hadn't damaged anything terribly vital.  "If it wasn't for modern technology, I'd be a mess of scars right now." He mused as he started towards the far off and brightly lit casino district.  "I wish I'd brought my ship."

      Of course, the noise from opening the hanger door and taking off would have roused someone on the ship, and that wasn't part of what he wanted to do, and besides that, he normally liked walking alone at night, watching the stars and thinking to himself.  "I can probably make it there, buy the stuffed animal and the beef, pick up something for Ed and be back before dawn and, hopefully, before Faye wakes up.  As long as I don't run in to any more trouble like that." He pursed his lips thoughtfully.  "There'd better not be a bounty on my head or anything.  Not like I'd know though what with Big Shot cancelled and all."

      The ship exploded behind him, fragments of the hull showering the ground to his sides and some even landing ahead of him as he walked along, once again the spitting image of nonchalance.  He soon became lost in his thoughts, curious ponderings of why someone had tried to gun him down and worried questions he posed to himself about why Faye was having troubles.  In fact, he was so caught up in his thoughts that he barely noticed when he'd entered the casino area of the city until a pizza delivery kid on a bicycle almost mowed him down.  

      It was the strong, distinct odor of anchovies and pineapple on the pizza that brought his mind back to the present and he stopped to pinpoint his position, overly bright neon signs flashing in each direction he turned, crowded noise in the air and the familiar pulse of organized theft emanating from the loud buildings surrounding him on all sides where people were winning chump change and loosing a whole ton of big bucks.

      "Hmm, provocative sign," He mused, watching as a nearly naked neon woman became illuminated in blinding flashes.  "Reminds me of the chick from Big Shots.  Oh, what a nice touch, they even have her wiggling her accessories." After deciding that he'd be able to find what he had come for in just about every building in a ten-block radius from where he currently stood, Spike closed his eyes and spun himself around carefully, not eager to reopen any healing wounds.  Once he stopped, he did a quick eenie-meenie-minnie-moe with the four casino hotels on that side of the street and walked into one.

      Smoke hung in the air and he imagined that the cloud couldn't have been any thicker or deadlier if it was from a nuclear warhead exploding.  "Ah, home.  Er, well …Faye's second home at any rate." He walked around for a time, resisting the urge to sit down at any of the tables and found himself standing in front of a store with large stuffed animals on shelves inside the glass outer walls.  "Bingo." Only after he had entered and started to browse through the selection the gift shop had to offer did he realize that he didn't know what sort of stuffed toy Faye would want or had had in her childhood.  Damn, obviously time for a second opinion.  Standing behind the counter was a blond woman who looked surprisingly familiar and Spike racked his brain for a moment before her name came to mind.  "Muriel?  Weren't you working at Mac's Diner the last I saw?"

      The girl giggled.  "Oh no, I'm not Muriel, I'm Mabel, Muriel's twin sister." She smiled at him brightly.  "What would you like assistance with, sir?  Oh my!  That must hurt!  Can I bandage that for you?"

      "Huh?  Bandage what?" Spike asked.  The girl, Mabel, leaned over the counter and poked his right shoulder lightly.  "Oh, that.  Yeah, sure, it'd be a great help.  Wouldn't want to pass out from loss of blood on my way back to my ship." 

      Mabel nodded seriously.  "One moment please," And she disappeared behind the counter.  There was a rummaging of items and Spike palmed a few trinkets he thought Ed would like while waiting for Mabel to finish.  She popped back up a minute or so later with a spray bottle of disinfectant, two patches of gauze and a roll of bandages, wearing Muriel's trademark smile.  They really were twins, in everything except the name.  

      "Here we go!  Off with your jacket and shirt, Mister …"

      "Spike, my name is Spike."  She nodded again and went to work as soon as he had tugged his tee shirt over his head.  "You're a lot more gentle than my normal nursemaid …I think he just likes seeing me suffer for acting rashly so often."

      "Oh my!  What a mean person!" Mabel exclaimed as she started to bind his injury.

      Spike laughed.  "Naw, not really, it's just his way of dealing with things, showing he cares.  He's like that to all of us on the ship, like a mom and dad rolled into one.  Guess I'm pretty thankful for that, otherwise we'd always be broke and starving." '_Wait a minute …we _always are_ broke and starving!_' "He keeps us somewhat under control.  Not that we ever really listen to him but …" He trailed off as she giggled, once again sounding the same as Muriel.

      "There we go, all done!" She announced after another minute.  "Now, what did you come in here to purchase, Mister Spike?"

      His response was slightly muffled as he worked his shirt on again, but apparently she understood.  "I need a stuffed animal …something for a girl to sleep with, like a comforting thing to hug after waking up from a nightmare.  Something plush I guess, but not in outlandish colors."

      She put a finger to her chin as she thought, pretty blue eyes roving over the shelves.  "How about …no …what if …no, that'll never do …hmm …" She tilted her head a bit to the side and thought a moment longer.  "What sort of animal does she like?"

      Spike chuckled.  "Forget dogs, and leave cats out too.  Maybe something ordinary …what kinds of stuffed toys did kids have back before the Gate Incident?"

      "Ah, I know the perfect thing!" She smiled and vanished through the small door leading into the back room of the gift shop and returned a moment later with a huggable sized toy bear.  "This is the Winnie-the-Pooh toy, a classic gift and a cherished child's item.  It was a popular children's show way in the past, this bear and other animals like a tiger, a kangaroo, an owl, a pig …that sort of thing.  All the rage, I suppose.  Nobody seems to want the dear anymore."

      "This'll be perfect, thank you." He looked to the price tag and pulled out his cash card, still retaining some of the money from the last bounty they had brought in.  "Oh, hey, do you know where I can find a grocery store open at this hour?  I need some beef …"

            *                                  *                                  *

"That lunkhead, nothing but trouble …" Jet grumbled to himself as he paced the length of the floor in the recreation/den room.  "Taking off in the middle of the night without bothering to let anyone know where he's going or when he'll be back.  Like a second Faye, dammit …but then there's that trust factor.  I can trust him to get into trouble, no matter what hour of the day or which planet he might be on.  Good karma, he says, bad luck how about?  Damn lunkhead."

      There came a whining from the floor and Jet glanced down in irritation to see Ein looking up at him with puppy-dog eyes.  "What do you want?  Come to wait up with me for our wayward friend to waltz in here before dawn like some juvenile teen hoping to sneak in before his parents are awake?" He shook his head then and stooped to rub the dog's head.  "Sorry about that, Ein.  Sometimes, well, sometimes I just don't know what goes on inside their heads.  It's like they feel that they can just come and go as they please, always expecting me to have food on the table, a bed for them to sleep in, and to be on call to fix up their ships every time they smash them up.  Well hell, this isn't a repair ship and this isn't a bed-and-breakfast." He groused some more beneath his breath before heaving a sigh and sitting down on the couch.  "All that pacing makes my leg hurt.  Doc did a good job getting the bullet out but it still bothers me sometimes."

      Ein whimpered in understanding and jumped up onto the couch, resting his muzzle on Jet's leg.  The grizzled bounty hunter stretched out on the couch and let his head rest against the back of it, staring up at the ceiling to see if he could find what about it held Spike's interest.  Spike was something else entirely.  Some bounties wouldn't get more out of him than a disinterested grunt while he could spend all day just boring a hole into the ceiling.  There were times when Jet really wanted to know all about his partner's past, just to know where the other was coming from sometimes, and other times when he wished he didn't know anything at all.  It was one of the unofficial rules of the Bebop though that one didn't simply butt into someone else's life with prying questions about one's background.  It wasn't really polite and more often than not, it brought a lot of people into trouble that they could have steered clear of.  Yes, in one word that was precisely what Spike Spiegel was: trouble.

      Unbidden, the image of the young Faye from the videos rose in his mind, all smiley and giggly as she called out.  "Give me a T!  Give me an R!  Give me an O!  Give me a U!  Give me a B, L, E!  What's that spell? Spike Spiegel!"

      "Even weirder," Jet mused,  "That actually rhymed and made sense."

      Ein gave him a baffled look and Jet chuckled.  The dog was more human than Edward a whole lot of the time, but then again that was Ed's charm, and Ein's as well.  Take one data-dog with human tendencies and put it with a genius hacker known to bite and bark and you've almost got a person.  A really messed up person, but one nonetheless.  Though the Bebop had acquired Ein as a crewmember before Ed, Jet could no longer think of one without the other coming to mind as well.  They had really bonded and, though he knew he'd regret this before too long, Jet had to acknowledge that he'd missed the rambunctious girl and the comforting mutt.

      The sun was still some time off from rising but predawn light had already begun to glow on the horizon when footsteps became audible from the direction of the main access hatch of the ship and Ein made as if to yip a welcome when his ears flattened down guiltily and the dog glanced towards where Ed and Faye were still sleeping.

      "You're one considerate mutt." Jet declared.

      "Yo."

      Jet glanced idly at his partner, noticing the paper bag he held with his left arm and a dark stain on the other shoulder of his navy jacket.  "Nice of you to wander off like that.  How'd you come by the bloodstain?"

      Spike rummaged through the paper bag and produced an object that made Ein whimper softly and eagerly for and tossed the thing to Jet, revealing itself to be a slab of beef wrapped in cellophane.  "No more excuses."

      "We're out of bell peppers."

      "They aren't required for a meal to be edible." Spike replied, walking down the stairs and through the den, heading in the direction of his room and where Ed was probably still draped across the ceiling pipes.  "Some nondescript yahoo tried to shoot me up on my way into town.  Cute kid named Mabel patched me up.  You should work a bit on your nursing skills, she could teach you a thing or two."

      "What'd you do to earn this bozo's wrath?"

      "Nothing I can think of.  Doesn't matter though, he's dead now."

      Jet was curious.  "What else is in the bag?"

      "What, you think I went shopping for just you?" Spike asked, a wry smile curling his lips.  "Cigarettes, some finger paint and play-doh for Ed, a milk bone for either Ein or the bitch dog we've got, and a teddy for her too." He disappeared down the hallway, a pale bone-shaped object flying out of the shadows that Ein caught with a hop.

      "Trouble with a heart." Jet muttered to himself, moving to put the meat in the fridge in the kitchen.  "The very worst and best kind."

*    *    *

She was making soft noises in her sleep and he noticed his battered and beaten duster on the floor near the bed, crumpled into a vaguely oblong shape.  His eyebrows rose in silent inquiry as he stepped quietly over to the bedside and tucked the teddy bear into her arms.  He hadn't expected the presence of the toy to miraculous set her in a peaceful dreamland where she could sleep with ease but the distress dissolved from her features and a small smile crept onto her lips.

      He slipped out of the room again, glancing towards the common room and wondering whether Jet had gone back to his own quarters.  A generous term, he supposed, glancing back towards his own.  In fact, he normally didn't sleep in there at all but rather on the obnoxious yellow couch in the main area.  Some nights however required a certain guarantee of privacy and so since he'd eluded death's grasp after the showdown with Vicious he had pretty much moved back into his room.  It wouldn't do to have people walk in on you when you're brooding in a vulnerable state and that was sure to happen if he'd stayed out in the rec./den room.

      A snore caught his attention and he glanced up to find Edward lying precariously balanced across the pipes that ran along the ceiling down the hall.  Planting his feet against one side of the hall and his back against the other he shifted and climbed until he was able to reach out and take Ed into his arms and then he pulled his legs away from the other wall, allowing himself to drop to the ground and landed on his feet.  Ed didn't stir from her sleep though the recent bullet wound protested loudly the scraping and bumping of his back along the wall.

      He stood there for a moment, his right arm giving off faint warnings of sapping strength, and realized that Ed didn't have a specific room.  She was just there on the ship, ate in the common room with the rest of them and slept wherever she was at whenever she needed to sleep.  Shrugging mentally, Spike carried the young girl down to Faye's room and settled her into the shrew's bed.  He contemplated retrieving the paper bag with Ed's little gifts from where he had set it in his room but decided he'd feel too much like that fat guy from the stories if he went that far.

      Jet was lying across the couch in the rec./den room, Ein sleeping on the chair across from the couch, and Spike sighed to himself.  Looked like a night of musical beds, he mused, scuttling down to Jet's room and dropping like a sack of rocks onto the other man's bed.  He absently pulled the comforter up about himself and gave a slight start.  Were these sheets satin?

*    *    *

Jet was setting out the ingredients for rice cakes and porridge when he heard it.  A soft, broken noise nearly made inaudible by the slam of a fist to metal a heartbeat later.  It wasn't any of his business and he didn't intend to make it such, breakfast was top priority and he set himself on that task with renewed vigor.  Faye without breakfast was like Spike without a cigarette – bottled up frustrated rage with a short fuse that was smoldering and just begging for someone to blow new life onto it.  In other words, not something he generally liked to deal with.

      It was a futile thing, however, much like his effort to go back to clipping his bonsai when Faye had called on the intercom the first time Spike had gone after Vicious since joining Jet over three years ago.  With a sigh, he slipped out of the kitchen and went to the entrance of the bridge of the vessel, seeing through the haze of cigarette smoke the hunched over form of Spike at one of the seats, shoulders shaking and his breathing harsh, though his face was dry.  He cried quietly, eyes clenched shut and hands fisted on his legs, never shedding a tear.

      Feeling a shiver crawl down his spine, Jet silently returned to the kitchen, mind already on the water boiling for the porridge and wondering idly whether they had any berry syrup to pour over the rice cakes.  Jet repressed another sigh.  He knew now what had been making the noises he sometimes heard when he woke up at odd hours and he wished more than ever that it had been Faye crying.  That he could deal with, that he had dealt with before …but Spike?

      The lanky cowboy showed up when Jet called out that breakfast was ready, sliding in a minute or so after Edward had barreled into the room, Ein yipping at her heels, and since finishing his meal Spike had disappeared, to the little room off from the hanger to clean his guns, Jet thought.  Faye hadn't come out for the morning meal and when he checked her room it was empty.  He'd been about to track down Ed and Spike to see if they knew of her whereabouts when he remembered that she had slept in Spike's room that night.

      He had his hand poised to knock, was rethinking what he was doing and about to leave again, when Faye's voice issued forth from within the quarters.

      "Are you going to stand there all day or what, Jet?"

      Frowning and mumbling to himself, Jet keyed the door open and walked in a ways.  "You missed breakfast."

      "My stomach already told me that."

      Nodding absently, Jet began to leave when she called out again.  "Wait."

      "Make it snappy, I've got things to do." There was always something to do on the ship, fixing their ships, fixing the shower, fixing up meals, trimming his bonsai, none of it was terribly pressing though and they both knew that he had no where else to be at the moment.

      "I …need some advice …I think."

      He crossed his arms over his chest and changed his stance a bit.  "What?"

      Faye rolled her eyes.  "You heard me.  And if you're any bit as smart as you like to think you are …well …then you already know what's on my mind."

      "Spike."

      "He's in pain." His mind flashed back to seeing the bounty hunter on the bridge earlier at her words.

      "So?" Jet asked.  "Get him drunk."

      "Doesn't work for him like it does for me, he's already numb.  We've got to get him to feel."

      He chuckled humorlessly.  "Good luck then, Faye.  That kid only feels when he wants to." He paused.  "If you need my help for anything though …well …it never hurts to ask."

      She smiled at him, a distant smile; her eyes were far away as well and shining with determination.  "I'll keep that in mind."

*    *    *

He wasn't working with his weapons like Jet had thought, Faye discovered, but in the laundry room and newly changed into his workout clothes.  His mahogany gaze slid over to her and away, the faint nod of his head the only other acknowledgement of her presence.  There was something clearly different about him this day, he was harder than normal, more defensive and obviously further in heart, spirit, and mind than she would have liked.

      With one hand on her hip she watched as he fiddled with the tie of his sweatpants, large enough on his lean frame that they hung on his slim hips, a worn wife-beater covering his chest and back.  She knew he'd toss that off once he had become fully immersed in his practice.

      "Bad dreams, Spike?"

      His mouth snapped open to counter her soft statement but closed just as quickly and he snatched a towel from the top of the washer, draping it over his shoulder and striding out into the hall.

      "Doesn't matter that you didn't answer.  We both know what you would have said." She paused, her voice altering slightly to try and imitate his but failing.  "_All of this is a bad dream.  Anything with you in it couldn't be good._"

      He ignored her, walking on.

      "You're just the same damn Spike Spiegel aren't you then?  Nothing has changed since you killed Vicious and brought the Red Dragons to their knees and Julia was murdered has it?  Not one thing!  Not outside at least.  Oh, that's what you like to pretend, Spike, isn't it?  Doesn't work though, not here, not with us.  If you can't even fool yourself how can you hope to fool us?"

      Spike stopped and spun around so suddenly Faye nearly collided with him.  The look that burned in her eyes gave her a chill but instead of backing away she narrowed her eyes and leaned in closer.  "I don't need to keep anything from myself and I shouldn't have to worry about people nosing into _my_ business."

      "The hell, Spike!  You've dragged us into your business and we deserve to know the full story but you know what?  I don't want to hear it.  I don't care about it.  The shit you went through doesn't matter to me because why should it when it doesn't even matter to you?  God dammit, Spike!  You're not an emotionless robot or a Vulcan or asleep!  You just keep on disillusioning yourself, acting like you're Mr. Cool, waltzing through life as if death means nothing, as if your life means nothing!  Wake up, dipshit!  No dream is so ugly as reality, no nightmare as painful.  You can't be asleep and dreaming if this is hell!" Her hands itched to slap him and she vaguely wondered what he would do if she did but before she could try he was kissing her.

      It wasn't some deep, soul binding, passion-filled thing, it was just his lips pressing against hers with a strength tempered by gentleness and it was over before she could even imagine kissing him back.

      His mismatched eyes bore down into hers and this time she almost did step back.  "What's it like to kiss a dream, Faye?"

      Stunned, she barely heard his question.  She stood there, watching him stalk down the hall again without really registering his exit, her mind touching back upon the last time he'd walked away like this when a voice pulled her back.  "Heh, stories say Sleeping Beauty was woken with a kiss.  Don't think I've ever heard the fairytale told where Sleeping Beauty is the one doing the kissing."

      Scowling and flipping Jet the bird, Faye turned around and stomped off in the opposite direction Spike had gone, reaching the hanger and taking to the skies in her Redtail, grumbling all the way.

*    *    *

The damn wench was still gone, Spike noted, pouring another shot into the glass he had set on the table beside a previously full bottle of Tequila.  Screw her.  It wasn't her right to make him feel, it wasn't her right to keep him from drifting aimlessly through this phase of his life pretending that nothing was amiss when so suddenly he'd had his foundations ripped away and his past buried in the rubble that marked all that was left of the Red Dragon Syndicate Headquarters.  Of course he should have known that Jet and Faye wouldn't have bought his little act.  Hell, it was such a pathetic attempt that Ed probably knew he was still mourning, still haunted.

      He stuck a finger into the liquor and put it in his mouth, giving an empty little grin before reaching out to actually pick the glass up.

      "What do you think, Jet?  Does time heal all wounds or make them deeper?" Spike drawled as he knocked back another shot of tequila.

      "I don't know, Spike-o …does liquor dull the pain or magnify it?"

      The two men shared a long look and Spike sighed heavily, throwing the empty glass at the wall.  His eyes were slightly glazed from the alcohol and from the ever-present regrets hounding him as he took a cigarette from his pack and lit it, inhaling deeply.  "We got the ingredients for a Prairie Oyster Breakfast?" He asked at last.

      Jet gave a laughing sort of sigh and nodded.  "Get some sleep and experiment on it in the morning, Spike …today has been a day from hell and I think we ought to let the sun set on it.  C'mon, buddy,"

      The one-armed bounty hunter assisted the other man to his quarters and Faye quietly entered the ship, her eyes bright from alcohol and her cheeks flushed.  "Hard to kiss a nightmare and imagine that it's a dream," Faye joked softly, stumbling in a few steps and started off for her room.  "Hope they've got the ingredients for a double-batch."

Dream on, Space Cowboy 

**Session XXX: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – **Spike is woken up by Ed in a world of pain and discovers that Faye, Ein and Jet are missing.  Suffering from internal injuries and external, Spike ventures out to rescue his woe-begotten partners.  Meanwhile, on a strange vessel near Venus, Faye and Jet take on new names as they play a dangerous game with Masrie, Max, and Max's younger brother Bree who has developed a friendship with Ein.  But when Max is killed, Bree goes after Spike for vengeance while Masrie escapes unscathed …will this new threat continue to hound the Bebop crew or will they be able to stop a revenge-crazed Muscle Man and take down a woman of sin?


	5. Session 30: The Good, the Bad, and the U...

Session XXX: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Edward slipped from the ventilation shaft with a worried expression as she made her way to where Spike lay unmoving on the floor of the Bebop.  She sighed resignedly and looked about expectantly for a moment.  "Ein?  Ein Ein! Ein where are you?" The thirteen-year old called.  There was a moment of silence and Ed's expression darkened.  "Ein no here.  They took Ein from the Bebop Bebop!"  With a look of determination, she sat down beside Spike and eyed him critically, gently pressing his ribs and shoulder where his clothes were stained by blood.  "Wakey wakey, Lunkhead!  Lunkhead lunkhead lunkhead!"

      Spike groaned and slowly opened his eyes to see Ed hovering over him.  Moaning in both pain and exasperation, he mumbled,  "Ed …I'm not in the mood to play games …" He shut his eyes and breathed laboriously for a time, and then his brow furrowed as he opened his eyes again and pulled himself into a sitting position with only a little help from Ed.  "Edward, where is Ein?"

      "Where, where?" Ed replied.  "Where is Faye-Faye and Jet?  Where, where?" 

      "Ugh." Spike rose to his feet and swayed dangerously.  "I need the medical kit, Ed …and I need to know what happened." He tenderly patted himself down, wincing often.  "I'd also like the number of the asteroid that hit me." As Ed scampered off, Spike frowned again and very nearly crumpled.  "Asteroid …abductions …ouch …there was an asteroid we were going to hit and then …that guy, the shadow thing …ugh," He growled out an epithet under his breath.  "Whoever or whatever kidnapped Jet, Faye and Ein is not a force to be underestimated.  He messed me up good …I'd almost respect that in a person, except for the fact that I had no chance to fight back.  Well then, I guess I'll just have to make up for that when I find this prick."

*    *    *

Faye blinked to awareness slowly, keeping her breathing steady and slow to mimic sleeping as she tried to analyze her situation.  Something registered on her after a moment and she had to take several deep, calming breaths to keep from leaping up and tearing someone to shreds.  She was naked.  She was naked and therefore unarmed and therefore vulnerable and she did not like to be in vulnerable situations.  Further more, there were voices speaking in low, earnest tones not very far from wherever she was and the voices sounded anything but familiar.

      "…From Mars …good body, they could be fake though …" A pause as attention was directed elsewhere.  "…This guy …weird arm …quality work …"

      And then,  "Woof!"

      "Well, hello doggy, how the hell did you get out here?" The speaker asked, not unkindly.

      "Can't we let the doggy stay out?  He ain't doing nobody no 'arm and he's a cute little fella …can't I keep 'im?" A second voice piped in.  "He's just a doggy, Max, please?"

      She could almost picture this Max fellow rolling his eyes and heaving a sigh.  "Fine, the dumb mutt is all yours.  Just keep him out of my way."

      "He ain't dumb, Max, he's a smart pup, he'll stay outta yer way." There was a pause and Faye could practically feel their eyes on her.  "Why'd we 'ave to strip 'er, Max?  She don't look dangerous …you know Masrie wouldn't be liking this.  She's just a woman, she can't do not'ing to us."

      There was the scraping of chair legs on the floor and Faye heard someone pacing.  "Bree, you're my kid brother and so I got to protect you and keep you safe from the lies and filth in the world like they got on the radio shows and on the news clips.  I understand that you don't know who this woman is, or the man for that matter, but they are trouble and they aren't to be underestimated.  We couldn't have her aboard with weapons, now could we?"

      There was a pause as the second man, Bree, seemed to digest this.  "I 'pose not, Max …but why did we leave the ot'er fella then?  We coulda take des two wit'out 'urting that one."

      The pacing stopped and Faye envisioned a stare-down.  "The man we roughed up …had we brought him aboard, we wouldn't have been able to handle him.  These two will be trouble enough, but the price is worth it …that woman …she's not just a beauty, she'll bring us quite a few woolongs.  We had to make sure that other guy wouldn't come after us …if I reckon right, he should be dead by now."

      "But, Max, you said we weren't gonna kill nobody …des ain't right, we s'ouldn't 'ave killed 'im."

      Max's voice grew complacent.  "Why, we killed no one, we just roughed him up a little.  It's entirely up to him whether or not he survives.  We dealt no killing blow, Bree."

      "Well, all right then, I guess that's okay …but can we at least dress the woman?  She ain't done not'ing to us, she deserves some dignity.  'Sides, Masrie wouldn't be liking to come back and finding 'er like that.  You know 'ow she gets."

      Max growled softly.  "I know …Masrie ought to be coming back soon and I'll have to meet her.  That's strange," A note of suspicion made its way into his voice.  "The knock-out drug should have worn off by now …I don't like this, Bree, for all we know those two could have been listening to our conversation.  Go and wake them, Bree, I've got to get back to the cockpit, and dress the slut while you're at it.  Wouldn't want Masrie getting jealous or nothing." There was the sound of receding steps and then heavy stomping approaching her.  A few buttons were pressed and she heard a door open and the stomping came nearer.

      Suddenly the stench of Bree filled the air around her, a rancid odor somewhat akin to the smell of Ein's slobber, Spike's pitiful attempt at cooking and a rotting corpse all rolled into one.  Faye gagged and sat up, coughing hard and struggling to catch a breath without catching the scent of Bree.  Through watery eyes, she finally got a look at the man who had taken a liking to the dog.  He was almost entirely made of muscle, standing over Faye sitting on her rump and she had the uneasy feeling that he would have towered over even Jet, had he been standing at his side.  He had a brutish face, small dull eyes a murky brown shade and a childish look that would have been quite hilarious, had she been able to breathe without using her nose at the moment, and had it not been for the sharp memories of the conversation Max and Bree had shared moments ago ringing in her ears.

      The other man back on the ship was obviously Spike and it sounded as though he was in a bad way.  She was worried about him …worried about Spike!  Imagine such a thing!  She should be worrying about herself and Jet …maybe even Ed and Ein if she was willing to go out on such a limb, but Spike?  Nevertheless worry she did and it was not a comforting feeling.  Bree was watching her and trying not to look at her at the same time and Faye remembered her nakedness in a flash.

      "Er …hello there, my name is Fa – Faye-Faye …what's yours?" She asked.  If Max hadn't seen fit to tell Bree exactly who they were, well, she certainly wasn't going to take away the only advantage she had.  

      "Tits get dressed.  Tits clot'es in the corner.  Bree don't like to see Tits like des." Bree replied, talking in a voice even more childish than Ed's.  He seemed even more uncomfortable with her being undressed than she was …hmm, another advantage to press, but perhaps at a different time because Jet, lying not far away, was beginning to stir.

      Nodding her thanks, she dressed quickly, watching over her shoulder to make sure that Jet wasn't awake and that Bree wasn't eyeing her.  Feeling much more secure in her clothes, she squatted down and looked over at Jet, still prone on the floor and a short dog with tawny fur peeked out from behind Bree.  Ein.  The dog scampered over to Jet and began licking the ex-ISSP officer's face, rewarded with a groan and a mumbled curse as Jet pushed the dog from him and blinked as though to clear his vision.

      "What in the …damn, and here I thought it was just a bad, really stupid dream." Jet muttered, lying back down.  "Where are we?  Where's Sp –"

      "Spikey?  I don't know, just you and me, Jazz.  What's the matter, don't like being stuck in a cell with Faye-Faye?" Faye interrupted, not wanting Jet to reveal their identities to this oaf prematurely.

      "Does doggy 'ave a name?" Bree asked, ignoring Jet's question about their location.

      "Um …er, no, Bree, feel free to name the dumb dog whatever you like." Faye replied quickly.  "So …where is Spikey then, Bree?"

      Bree glared at her, eyes darkening in anger.  "Doggy isn't stupid, Tits is stupid.  Apologize to doggy." Bree ordered.

      "Erm …of course …my sincerest apologizes, doggy," Faye answered, her right eyebrow twitching.  _'Great, just great, not only am I stuck with Jet and Ein, but the dog gets more respect than I do?  What is it about that stupid dog?!'_

      "Tits, eh?" Jet whispered to Faye in a conspiratorial voice.

      "Shut up, Mr. Metal Arm." She growled.

      Bree grinned and gave Ein a hearty pat that made the dog quiver.  "Fluffy-'air is Spikey?  Fluffy-'air isn't doing so hot.  Maybe dead, maybe not.  Dunno fer sure."

      Jet's eyes widened but he gave no other sign of surprise.  "Well …why are we here?  Where are we?  What do you want with us?" Jet demanded.

      "Now, now, now, you ought to know that in situations such as these, the questions are asked by those in charge," A new voice said from by the door.  In walked a tall, leggy woman with a bust only moderately less than Faye and frizzy maroon hair that reminded her strangely of Spike.  Her crimson eyes were fixed on Faye and Jet, appraising them in long looks, cool and calculating.  Her eerie gaze fell once to Ein and her lips curled back in disgust before she looked past the mutt.

      '_This must be Masrie …ugh, what on earth is she wearing?  A fur skirt and snakeskin boots?  With a leopard-print tube top?!_' Faye shuddered inwardly.  '_This woman has obviously no fashion sense.  Man, I think Bree smells better than she looks!_' A tentative sniff of the air quickly convinced her otherwise.  "Well, if you're the one in charge, let's get this inquisition on the road!" Faye demanded, glaring at the other woman.  "C'mon, Tits has got better things to do than to sit around and wait for you dolts to get this over!  Whaddaya want from us?"

      Jet cleared his throat meaningfully and shot Faye a dark look.  "If you haven't noticed, Faye-Faye, we're the prisoners here.  I don't think insulting them is a wise move, unless you'd like to ignore your Romany background and spend some quality time dead."

      Faye frowned.  "I don't like being in situations like this, Jazzy boy, I don't like the smell of this at all." Both looked up to Bree at that, but the large oaf seemed deaf to their words.  Masrie, however, was anything but.

      "Quit the small talk there, you two," She ordered, her slate-grey eyes riveted intently on the pair.  "Miss Tits," She started, with a scornful look at Bree, "you're worth quite the pretty penny to somebody down on Venus, and the bounty on your head goes up for each accomplice you've got.  Unfortunately, we couldn't risk bringing the kung-fu guy and the boy wasn't on the ship, plus the mutt isn't worth a woolong to anybody.  We're getting enough from just bringing in you and Mr. Roboto there."

      Faye's mind whirled.  Venus?  Who did she know on Venus?  Or perhaps the better question, who did she piss off on Venus?  She quickly thought back.  The first time she'd been on the planet she had made friends with a stripper named Sherri and she had also gotten herself permanently banned from the majority of the casinos there.  The second time she had taken care of a few bounty heads with help from Spike and Jet and blew her money at the casinos she was still allowed in.  The third time.  Ouch.  Never mind the third time.  Between stripping for horny men and nearly dying because some insane old guy wanted to dissect her to steal her heart, she wasn't too eager to touch back on that memory.

      "Who wants us?" Faye demanded, pleased that her voice was full of anger and steady.  "Who the hell do you think you are anyway?  We're bounty hunters, not bounties!"

      "Oh, my dear Faye-Faye," Max drawled in a faux-sweet voice.  "I beg to differ.  You are worth quite a bit to someone very important.  Actually, so was Afro-puff but he'd have been too dangerous to bring along.  Alive anyway."

      "She'll be pleased enough with this one anyway." Masrie muttered.  "A guy is a guy.  There's nothing special to differentiate any of them." Max shot her a dark look but she ignored him.  "Make sure they stay here and don't cause me any trouble, I'm going to set the course.  Bree, bring the damn dog with you and come with me.  I don't trust you in charge of those two."

      Bree ducked his head in quiet submission and scooped Ein up without much of a struggle from the Welsh corgi.  Faye felt betrayed by that.  It didn't matter though, she had to work out a plan with Jet that would get them both out of this mess and back to the Bebop in time to save Spike's stupid life for the millionth time.  And hopefully she'd get a few answers in the process.

*    *    *

Ein's canine nose should have made proximity to Bree exceedingly unpleasant, if not vomit inducing, but like most dogs he usually preferred nasty smells to pretty ones.  They were more interesting for sure, and since hanging around Ed he'd smelled plenty of bad things.  The girl had a knack for finding things only a dog would like.  It was one of the things he liked about her.

      Bree had set him down upon entering the cockpit of the ship and Masrie left the cockpit soon after plotting the course for the automatic pilot.  Ein sat on the floor a few feet in front of where Bree was kneeling and facing him, the man imitating the dog instead of the dog playing at being a man.

      After leading Bree through a few paw shakes and roll over tricks, Ein jumped to his feet and dashed out the door, leaving Bree to clamber to his feet and trail after him, calling in a soft yell so as not to draw attention from Max or Masrie most likely.  Ein led the other on a quick obstacle course around all sections of the ship he could get to and then leaded off for the kitchenette, peeling down a different corridor back to the cockpit at the last instant and leaving Bree to search for him where he wasn't.

      Masrie hadn't returned to the cockpit, Max was still watching Faye and Jet, and Bree was playing hide-and-go seek with a welsh corgi who had left the room.  This was going to work out well.

*    *    *

"Spikey-lunkhead-person!" Ed called, chortling at her own ingenuity in naming people and things.  "Transmission from a ship!  It's Ein-woof-woof!"

      Spike, finished with patching himself up as best he could, which was to say not very well, chose to ignore certain questions that sent up flares in his mind, such as how Ein would be able to send a transmission to them.  He supposed it was possible that the mutt walked over buttons and accidentally arranged for a transmission but it seemed way too lucky that the dog would be able to reach the Bebop out of all the other possibilities in the cosmos.

      "Ship-ship is the asteroid from before!  Faye-Faye and Jet-person are being held hostage and taken to Venus, yep yep.  Ed has arranged for Bebop Bebop to follow in space-rock-ship's flight path and then Spike-person can take his ship and sneak aboard and save the day!"

      The viridian-haired bounty hunter stood from the couch and made his way into the cockpit of the Bebop where Ed was working the controls still.  Sure enough, Ein's face was visible on a tiny screen for incoming calls.

      "Does Ed get to come and be a hero too like before?"

      "No!" Spike shouted.  "This is too dangerous and these people mean business.  I won't have you dragged into this." Without warning he doubled over, clenching the ledge of a control panel so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he drew in several staggered breaths.  His eyes were wide and fixed on a spot on the floor as he licked his lips hesitantly, recovering from the pain that had torn at him from within.  Ed was there then, watching him with worry in her eyes.  

      "Lunkhead?  Lunkhead okay?"

      "Yeah …fine, Ed." Spike replied in a controlled voice.  _'What the hell did they do to me?  That was like no pain I've ever experienced before …'_  "Well, I guess I'm off then.  Hold down the fort, Ed, I'm coming back with everyone or I'm not coming back at all."

      "Spike-person …Spike is better than them.  Spike will bring back Ein and Faye-Faye and Jet." Ed replied seriously.

      Spike smiled slowly.  "I sure hope so, Ed." And then he was gone.

*    *    *

The gravity conked out in the asteroid ship and alarms began blaring, the entire ship shuddering as if under a considerable attack.  Of course, with Ein at the helm the ship could be lead into any number of obstructions.  Max was less than pleased when the gravity came back on and he fell heavily to the floor.

      "Doh god dabbit!" He hollered, wiping a smear of blood from his nose, which he had landed on.  "Stodgers!  Emerson!  In here n'dow!  Watch dese two and if dey make de wrong move, shoot der legs." Max ordered a pair of toughs.  "Dere's a tidy profit to be made from dem and I won't be loosing it because dey want freedom.  If Masrie comes down here tell her I've gone to the cockpit." With his nose smashed up the way it was he sounded a great deal like his brother Bree.

      The two nodded and Max ran out, one hand stretched to lightly brush against the wall of the corridor as if to prevent himself from rising if the gravity were to fail again.

      There were only two of them and Jet had a gun.  Not his normal choice of weapon but a small and compact little killer stashed in the heel of one of his shoes.  The other had some minor explosives.  He had learned a thing or two in his day, perhaps the most helpful lesson being that you could never be loaded with too many weapons.

      The explosives made swift and smoking work of the reinforced plasti-glass wall and between Faye's angry rampage and his own gun, the two guards were quickly incapacitated as well.

      "You go find Masrie, I'll get Bree and watch out for Max while you're at it." Jet ordered.  Faye quickly checked the guards for weapons and tied them fancifully with their jackets in an awkward position that put a decidedly happy gleam in her eyes.  If Jet hadn't been so pissed about the entire situation he probably would have laughed, but he instead ran from the room to find a certain muscle man presumably in the company of a familiar mutt.

*    *    *

Masrie's rush to the cockpit was slightly impeded by the unexpected presence of an irritated demon with green hair, though she dodged him for the moment easily enough by smashing a door in his face.  That was one of the good things about the old clunker of a ship.  You could actually slam the doors shut.  She nearly tripped over the dog escaping from the cockpit though, and when she saw him she wanted to groan out loud.

      Of course.  She had left Bree in the cockpit.  But it was Max she saw at the helm when she entered and it was Max that she aimed her own gun at as he whipped around to see who was inside.

      "You left them to escape?"

      "No!  I had Stodgers and Emerson watch them." Max explained.

      The round she unloaded into his chest said fairly well what she thought of his explanation and she was already halfway down the hall on her way to the holding cells when Bree appeared before her.  In the distance at her back she could hear the sounds of a now-irate demon in hot pursuit and she easily willed her eyes to be tearful and her lips to quaver.

      "Oh, Bree!  That green-haired guy is here and he's killed your brother!  Bree, he killed Max!" She'd always thought of herself as a superb actress.  Well now, she'd be cleaning up quite nicely here.  Max was dead, the green-haired guy would be dead, once she got to where Faye and Jet were she'd take care of Stodgers and Emerson and then she'd have a loyal Bree to help her bring in those annoying bounty hunters.  It was all falling into place so nicely, even if it wasn't what she had originally intended.

      But a flash of bright yellow foretold of a few more bumps in the road and Masrie flew back into the wall of the corridor with a pained yelp as Faye advanced on her.

*    *    *

Max was very much dead when Jet burst into the cockpit and the ex-ISSP officer swore heartily.  He was really starting to wonder why they were on board the stupid ship.  Normally, when it was their own fault for being in trouble, Jet didn't get so frustrated, but when it seemed as if for once they weren't at fault, well, that was just asking for it.  

      He left in a hurry down the hall and rounded the corner with his gun cocked and ready to confront whatever awaited him and stopped dead in his tracks.  Spike was crumpled against the bulkhead, one arm wrapped around himself and the other hanging loosely at his side, dark stains on his clothing from where blood had clotted against the cloth.  The younger man was shivering, his eyes clenched tightly shut as he sucked in a deep breath and rose to stand on shaky feet.

      "Spike!" Jet called in a loud whisper.  The lean and lithe man spun around – apparently too quickly, for he wavered before falling heavily to one knee.  "Spike, what the hell happened to you?"

      Despite the obvious pain he was in, Spike managed a pale ghost of his normal grin and peered up at Jet through squinted eyes.  Cursing under his breath, Jet moved swiftly to Spike's side and knelt, laying a hand across the other's back.  Spike drew in a shuddering breath and coughed raggedly.  "Big boy caught me off guard.  He's a bit trigger-happy at the moment so I felt it prudent to take my leave and come back to finish him off later.  Said something about justice and some Max character.  He's not quite sane, is he?"

      "Bree, and no, not anymore, I'd assume.  Someone offed his brother Max and he wants revenge." Jet replied.

      "Apparently he thinks I'm the bad guy who did his brother in.  Damn.  Irrational men are harder to dispose of when they're looking for blood.  Oh well, whatever happens …happens." Spike replied.  "I'm fine now, go off and find Faye, chances are that girl is in over her head somewhere.  Let me take care of muscle man."

      Jet scowled and stood, helping Spike to his feet though the younger man tried to shrug off the assistance.  "Fine, but if you go off and die on us I won't think very highly of you.  We aren't even the ones responsible this time.  I won't have you be some damned martyr here."

      "What are you talking about, Jet?" But the other obviously didn't really care about having his question answered for he was off again in a heartbeat.

      Frowning angrily, Jet did an about-face and hurried off back down the hall to where the corridor had branched off and he and Faye had split directions.  He needn't have worried though because Faye had things quite in hand.  Or should he say in handcuffs?  It looked as if Masrie wouldn't be going anywhere in a hurry.

*    *    *

"You know what?  I'm getting damn sick and tired of everyone trying to wipe the floor with me!  It'd be _nice_ if you bastards would let me heal from one damn fight before busting me up again!" Spike shouted.

      Bree turned around and bellowed something at the bounty hunter, throwing the machine gun he'd picked up from somewhere before he'd run into Spike.  He ran at Spike, practically frothing at the mouth.

      "Fluff killed Max!  Fluff killed Max!  Max didn't do not'ing to Fluff!  We wasn't going to kill, just hurt so Fluff wouldn't live!"

      "I don't think I want to hear your definition of killing someone then." Spike growled to himself.  He pivoted and slammed Bree in the face with his shoe, but the oaf caught his leg and swung the great Spiegel by his leg, releasing him to smash into a wall some distance away.

      Spike lay there groggily for a time and then did something he should have done from the beginning.  He pulled his gun and shot Bree in a very sensitive but not lethal location.  And that proved to be enough to keep anyone down until the cavalry, in the form of Faye, Ein, and Jet, could get there to be of some help.

*    *    *

"So she finally cracked?"

      "Yep.  Ed should really be a questioner.  Hell, I'd break." Faye replied.

      Spike pondered that for a minute.  "I'm almost afraid to ask."

      "Its just Ed being Ed.  But with about two liters of sugary caffeine cola and seven candy bars in her."

      Spike shuddered.

      "Precisely."

      "So who wanted you on Venus?" He asked then.

      Faye was silent for such a long time that Spike was starting to wonder if she'd heard or intended to reply.  And then, "Good old Ebenezer wanted me.  Precocious little V wanted you.  Turns out Masrie is like her mom or something.  I left after that but Jet can give you the full story if he can handle being in there for Ed's entire inquisition."

      "No.  I don't think there's anything more that's important."

      Faye nodded numbly and looked down at her woe-begotten partner, all wrapped up in bandages and reclining on the couch.  "You know, it's pretty sad but, I think I'm getting more used to you being in this get-up than you wearing that ridiculous blue suit."

      "It's not ridiculous.  It's comfortable.  It's also got just the right amount of pockets and it isn't difficult to hide weapons in it."

      "It's not in fashion." Faye argued.

      "It's better than yellow hot pants and that stupid red sweater thing." Spike retorted.

      "Why you!  My sweater is an essential part of my outfit!"

      "You know, you could probably ask Masrie for some fashion tips, she seems pretty up on that sort of thing."

      Spike found himself bereft of a pillow and in a haze of falling feather and not for the first time either.  He laughed quietly to himself.  "Sometimes the saddest things have the best humor."

_Send in the clowns…_

**_On the next session of Cowboy Bebop …_**

Actually, I'm not sure which session I'm posting after this.  I'm revamping much of the sessions I'd written so …who knows?  Hopefully I'll have this up before Christmas though.  Keep on the lookout!  And don't forget to review!


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